Shortly before I flew
down to
Aden for my Christmas leave Richard wrote and suggested that we should spend
part of it staying in a fort in the Western Aden Protectorate.He explained in his letter that whereas the
Eastern Protectorate, with Mukalla as its chief town, was a well-developed
state with quite a considerable cultural development, the Western part of the
Protectorate was relatively primitive and inhabited by a number of warring tribes- until very recently and unhealthy spot for
Europeans to visit unless they were well protected by a strong bodyguard.

“It won’t be luxury travelling”,
he wrote, “but it should be
very interesting.”

My imagination was taxed enough already
in foggy Milan to
visualise hot and sunny Aden, for which, while shivering in woollen jumpers and
a fur coat, I should have to pack the thinnest of summer frocks.I wrote back that I should love to do
anything he arranged, so long as I was with him, and thought no more about it.

When I arrived he explained
more
in detail.It was an opportunity not to
be missed, he said.Very few people
were
allowed into the Western Protectorate.We might never getanother chance
and it would certainly be worth while.He had warned me that it might be a little uncomfortable, but what he
really wanted to prepare me for was the journey there and back, which would be
very hard going.I had only been
twenty-four hours in Aden and I was in no mood to find anything too
difficult.If he had suggested a
ride in
an amphibious jeep across the Red Sea I would have accepted.Aden, with its smells and sights, the camel
cart, the brightly coloured local dress, the flanking volcanic rocks, the dhows
smelling of shark oil and the shark-infested sea, he shops in the Crescent
waiting spider-like to tempt all ship’s passengers, on shore for a few hours,
to buy mediocre goods and anything but mediocre prices, the English colony
itself, so hidebound by status and tradition, all this gave my mind plenty to
digest and left no room to deal with imaginary pictures of life in an Arab
village.

We spent Christmas Day
in
traditional style in spite of the weather, feasting off turkey and plum pudding
and going to sleep after lunch.On
Christmas evening, unable to eat, we went out and danced and drank and got home
at three in the morning.I fell
asleep
immediately, and did not wake until I heard a knock at our bedroom door.

“It’s
six-thirty.There’s Ishmael
with the
coffee.We must get up.Today’s the day we’re going to Mudia.”

Richard sat up with
a jerk,
barked out “Come in” and then fell back fast asleep again.But it was not the discreet Ishmael, but
pock-marked, coal-black face, dressed in white tropical jacketand knee-length shorts, coming in with
springy treat and his usual cheerful “Good bornin, sar”, spoken with a
Jeeves-like mixture of friendliness and tactful respect.Ishmael would not drive up in his highly
polished, new, green limousine until seven, after the rest of the staff had
begun. Instead, a frightened pantry boy had been told off to serve us.“Oh dear,” I said, knowing the pantry boy’s
habits, “that means weak coffee this morning.”

The strength of the
coffee was
very important.The highly chlorinated
salty Aden water made early-morning tea impossible, and coffee was only
drinkable if it was strong enough to mask the taste of the water.Richard drank a cup with plenty of sugar in
it.I managed one sip.We could neither of us face the plate of
green bananas.

The driver was due to
arrive for
us at eight.We had decided to make an
early start for Mudia, even if it meant sacrificing some sleep, in order to get
as much driving done in daylight as possible.We had a hurried shower and dressed quickly.Richard had been warned to put on his naval
shirt with tabs, and to wear a cap to prevent any trouble with the customs in
the Fadhli Sultan’s territory.I
dressed
in navy blue slacks and a blouse and cardigan, having been told that it was only
hot in Aden and could be quite cold where we were going.The advice was ill-taken in both cases.We were neither of us suitably dressed; Richard
had to borrow clothes and I, being unable to borrow since I was the only
European woman there, had to suffer.What to take with us was the next problem.Richard decided on a toothbrush and razor
first, and then added a change of shirt and shorts, and a warm jacket and
pullover.I put in a rather highly
coloured utility dress, one or two cardigans and a gabardine costume, a change
of underclothes and a make-up bag.By
the time we had finished our brief packing, I was perspiring heavily and began
to long for the cool air which we were to find outside.

We had more
coffee.I managed two sips this
time and
Richard two cups.We each ate a
slice of
pawpaw, with lime juice and salt and pepper.A cigarette, a final word of instruction from Richard about work in the
office while he was away, and it was already eight o’clock.Richard’s flat had a balcony running along
one side of it which is used as both dining room and sitting room.It faces a big square containing the town
football ground, and there is constant traffic of taxis and cars and jeeps and
camel carts around it.We spent
the next
two hours heralding the noise of all motor vehicles within hearing distance by
a ‘here it is’ before the Land Rover finally arrived.I tried to stifle both a desire to yawn and a
feeling of cross regret at having lost sleep unnecessarily.When it did arrive, neither of us was
ready.Richard had gone across to
the
office, I was doing my hair again, and Ishmael, who should have carried our
bags down, had gone out.

The next
half hour was spent in a dangerous search for petrol.Since December 26th was Bank
Holiday, most of the petrol stations were shut.Our driver, a wild man from the Western Protectorate, lean, brown, with
finely-chiselled features and a worried frown, d rove us impetuously up and
down streets to the period of other cars, goats, sheep, pedestrians and
ourselves.The camels, being large,
would probably have won in any encounter.We picked up an empty can with a whole in it in one place, filled it
with petrol at another, drove some distance with the petrol spurting lavishly
out of the hold, had the hole soldered up at yet another place, and at last
started off down the main road out towards the beach.All this time Richard and I had sat in
childlike bewilderment, abandoning ourselves to our fate.We knew no Arabic, the driver and his
satellite in the back knew no English.I
sat back with a sigh of relief and an affectionate smile at Richard and at that
moment the driver decided to hold and urgent discussion with the boy in the
back.Europeans may have cultivated
the
faculty of talking through the back of their heads, it seems that Arab drivers
have not.To talk one must look
at the
person to whom one is speaking.We
were
on the wrong side of the road and within a few feet of a head-on collision
before the driver responded to a touch on the arm from Richard, looked around,
saw the oncoming car, and jerked the wheel over to safety.

We turned off the tarmac
road on
to a sandy track leading to the sea, and left Aden behind us, brown and rocky
and dazzling in the heat.It had been
high tide at eight, and now a broad sweep of deceptively smooth sand stretched
for miles ahead of us.We began
our drive
towards the small town of Shukra, about seventy miles away, to the east of Aden
along the coast in the territory belonging to the sultan of Fadhli.We drove, keeping the sea on our right and
the sand dunes and desert on our left.It was not a comfortable drive.The first few miles were punctuated every few yards by invisible ridges
which caught the Land rover amidships and threw us forward with a lurch against
the windscreen.then came a patch
which
broke the monotony of the automatic bumping, and gave us a number of
surprises.We drove boldly over
a
Daytona-like stretch, though not quite at racing-car speed – we scarcely even
managed top gear for more than a hundred yards – and then suddenly one of two
things happened.Either we would
be
faced with a steep drop down a bank into the bed of a waddy, and when this
happened the driver got out, ran a hundred yards or so testing the firmness of
the sane with elastic, barefooted leaps into which he put as muchweight as possible, crushed down the side of
the bank to give us a smoother run and then drove us at full speed into and
across the waddy in a dash to reach the good firm sand on the other side; or we
would be lulled by the smoothness into believing that all the beach was firm
and suddenly find ourselves caught in a well of loose sand, with the engine
roaring and the wheels whirring, quite unable to go backwards or forwards.It was on such occasions that the camaraderie
of the desert showed itself.From
nowhere, from deserted sand dunes and a completely empty beach, a handful of
men in foutahs – the native coloured skirts – wioth rifles slung over their
shoulders and the tails of their turbans waving, would come running up,ready to lend a shoulder and shove us out again.When they had dislodged us, they clustered
around the car talking.

We left it to the driver
and he,
with a curt sentence or two, which we hoped was of thanks, drove on.Perhaps it was a general system of mutual
aid.We stopped twice while the
driver
ran to help a lorry in difficulties.But
I noticed that he rewarded himself with water for our boiling radiator, a
fair-sized tip when one considers the scarcity of it in that arid country.

Herons and
pelicans watched us roar by, from the water’s edge. Hundreds of small,
twinkling, sharp-beaked birds scattered in flight as we drove along.And as we drew nearer to Shukra the sand lost
its smoothness and became pimpled over with worm-casts like rough cast on the
side of a house.Where the worm-casts
were thickest, there we found the crabs, myriads of land-crabs clouding the
sand and sidling off rapidly as we approached, in angular disdain, like ballet
dancers minoing [or mincing? P 9) on their points.

We had planned to meet our
host,
Archie Wilson, for lunch at Shukra but by the time we got there it was well
past lunch and he had already eaten.

“Come in,
come in, do” he said, after we had been introduced, “my Somali boy, Ali, has
got lunch all ready for you.I hope
you
will forgive my having eaten.It
was
rather late and I began to think you must have changed your minds about
coming.”

He took me
first of all to wash my hands, for which I was very grateful since I was
covered with dust, and besides, had not been successful in getting the driver
to stop discreetly for me on the way.A
canvas basin, a large drum of water, soap and a towel, and a hole in the floor
dropping straight down on to the beach were what I found.I did not know it then, but the fact that the
bathroom had a roof over it was something of a luxury.When I found my way back to the sitting room
I noticed that Archie had changed out of trousers into a foutah.Richard told me afterwards that Archie had
explained he had put on trousers to be polite but that when he saw what I was
like he had not hesitated in getting out of them for the more comfortable
foutah.Whether or not he meant
that as
a compliment I do not know.

It was my
first visit to an Arab house and I was very impressed by the coolness of
it.The sitting room was a large
whitewashed room, with windows looking straight out over the beach. Arab rooms
have windows in most of the walls, with small square outlets cut above them, so
that you can vary your ventilation if there is wind, and if need be, shut all
the windows to keep out the sand, and ventilate through the small outlets.

Ali gave us
a wonderful vegetarian lunch of Heinz spaghetti, fried eggs and tomatoes and
fruit, especiallychosen for me,
and the
first proof of Archie’s excellence as a host.When we had finished, Richard and I left Archie while he made
last-minute arrangements about the next stage of our journey, and wandered out
to take some photos and look at the town.All the houses were sand-coloured and box-like, with small windows and
often crenelated roof tops.They
were
surrounded by high walls, and we could see women and children peering out
through the doors in them shy of us but wanting to see what the curious white
people looked like.Some of the
smallest
children were running about on the beach, dark eyed, black skinned and curly
haired, and with practically no clothes on.When we tried to photograph them they all ran away, except the very smallest
of all who couldn’t manage it, and fell flat on his tummy on the sand, staring
at us with an aggressive, rather cross expression when we pointed the camera at
him.Archie joined us and took us
to see
the school which is being built there.A
small, unpretentious building of four classrooms, each with one window, one
blackboard built in the wall, and one roughly built cupboard.The size of the rooms had been regulated by
the ceilings, which are made of large beans if ilb, a hard red wood, the only
wood available locally, with the intervening spaces filled in with mud and the
dried twigs of the ilb placed at right angles to the beams.Larger ceilings would require pillars to
support them and these the educational officer, who had designed the school,quite rightly refused to have, saying that
you could not have some poor child losing all its schooling by having to sit
behind a pillar and see nothing.We
shook hands with the builder and all his workmen and smiled our compliments,
since we could not speak them.

“Let’s go,”
said Archie, “we’ve got a long journey ahead of us.”

Archie is
tall and thin and aristocratic-looking.He wears a monocle and smokes a pipe and has a complete disregard for
final g’s and vowel lengths in his speech.I learnt later that he has an equal disregard for his own physical
safety.He is conservative and
traditional to the fingertips, but so intellectually honest that he is forced
to admit the right of other people to hold a different point of view from his
own.His forbears, immediate and
remote,
have all had a hand in making the British Empire what it was, and, in Archie’s
opinion, no longer is but still should be.For an adult I am ridiculously shy about new acquaintances and for quite
a few miles before reaching Shukra I had been hoping that Archie would fail to
be there.My nervous doubts were
dissipated as soon as I met him. He is the good –mannered man par excellence:
he has tact, courtesy, amusing conversation and a charming lack of that modern
failing: the probing, inquisitive, direct question.He took over the driving and we sat in front
beside him.

“Let me
know whenever you want to stop,” he said.“We are in no hurry and the going’s hard.Whenever you want to rest just say so.”

The going was hard.We turned out backs on to the sea and Shukra
and struck out inland towards a formidable group of volcanic mountains.The road until recently had been nothing but
a narrow camel track.Now, graced
with
the dignified title of road, it was wider, but that was about all one could say
for it.Its surface was still
interestingly rugged.Archie drove
splendidly, knowing just when to accelerate and lurch ahead, and when to slow
down for bumps.We had gone many
miles
before he revealed, or we guessed, that the brakes had gone.The first few miles reminded me of driving up
the foot of Etna, The road and the surrounding land was strewn with lumps of
lava of all sizes: dust, pebbles, small stones, chunks, huge boulders.Slabs of lava paved the road itself where the
sand had been blown off or worn away.After some miles I gave up making mental comparisons.Etna was a child’s plaything compared with
these extinct volcanic giants, thrown up and hardened in some mighty eruption
hundreds of thousands of years ago.It
was not a question of boulders or crags or even slopes of lava.Vast mountains had been poured there and had
presented unchanging entities of black, impenetrable rock ever since.One mass, as large as Etna itself, looked
like a gigantic Christmas pudding on which the brandy sauce had set as it
trickled down; in between the trickles huge caves had formed.Bones found in some of the caves prove that
they were once at ground level, so Archie told us.Now they are several hundred feet up.

We came
upon a waddy, green with succulent plants, and glistening with what appeared at
a distance to be moist soil.But
when we
came closer the glistening proved to be shining lava caught by the sunlight,
and there was no moisture at all.

“There’s no
water there.” Said Archie, “The succulents thrive on the little rain they get
once a year and all the digging in the world won’t yield you a drop.”It seemed ironic:such greenness and such drought.A few goats were grazing there but their
owner carried water in a large skin bottle on his camel’s back.

When we reached
the highest point in the track across the range, we stopped and got out to look
back through the gap at the sea far away in the distance.Shukra had disappeared and there was nothing
to be seen except sky, very blue, sea, white-fringed with waves, and forbidding
black barriers of mountainous rocks.

“That’s
where we go,” said
Archie, pointing ahead of us down the other side of the pass into the sandy
plain.“You’d better pull your turbans
across your faces.It’s going
to be
dusty now.”

And dusty it was.We
drove along dusty tracks into which the wheels of the Land Rover sankso deep that the ridge of dust in between
scraped the undercarriage.It gave
us
all the sensations of skidding, minus the danger, for there was nothing you
could run into except more dust.

We shut the
sidescreens and opened the windscreen at the bottom and the dust got in our
mouths.We then shut the windscreen
and
opened the sidescreens and it got in our ears and hair.Every now and again we bucked over a six-foot
ridge of solid dust, churning it between the wheels and then nose-diving
down.As we drove along I noticed
sculptured mounds of dust, man-high, and fantastically shaped, dotted all over the
desert.

“Ant-hills”,
said Archie briefly

We stopped at a giant
waddy for a
nip of whisky from our flasks.Ilb and
acacia-like trees growing shoulder-high on banks of crevassed dust, with all
their roots exposed.And then we
drove
on and on, past mud-coloured villages where stray dogs, lean and angry, came
out and barked at us; past flocks of black-faced sheep with fat tails, past
camels laden with fodder, past scampering she-goats and their young.Vultures hovered over everything, and when
the sun went down and we plunged on through whirling dust, bats fluttered
backwards and forwards in the light of the head-lamps.

We reached Mudia at
nine in the
evening.Archie’s black-turbaned tribal
guards were there to salute us.

“My fort,”
said Archie taking his pipe out of his mouth, and pulling off his white
head-cloth.“The guards are
waiting for
you to take the salute, old man” he said to Richard.Formalities over, we went in through the
doorway cut in the thick outer walls of the dar.To our right, stone stairs led up to Archie’s
room and bathroom, built over the guard-room.To our left were the kitchen with guest-room cum office, and the
wireless room, and a balcony, reached, like Archie’s room, by an outer stone
staircase of rough steps.The Dar
itself
towered in the middle and housed Archie’s A.P.O., Ahmad, Education officer for
Dathina state, and one of his assistants, a young boy of fifteen.On the remaining corner of the square walls
surrounding the Dar was the lavatory, white-washed, as I afterwards learned,
especially for my benefit, with the mud-ceiling and roughcast walls I had seen
in the school-rooms at Shukra, and with the luxury of concrete foot-slabs on
either side of the hole.

Our room
was small and square and newly whitewashed, with a mud floor, two windows in
each of the walls north and south, two niches cut, in which to stand oil lamps,
one large single bed, one map of the Western Protectorate (very inaccurate, as
I afterwards learnt from Archie). One chair and whole stacks of the Aden
Gazette.Through the windows on
the
south side we could see right across the plain to ranges of mountains, of which
one was shaped exactly like the Matterhorn.Through those in the north we were visible to anyone who cared to go by
with washing to hang yup at the other end of the balcony, or work to do in the
wireless room.

The bathroom
outside Archie’s room was open to the sky with an eight-foot wall on three
sides and the wall of Archie’s room on the fourth.It was completely visible from the turreted
windows of Ahmad’s room, but when I confessed my fears of being overlooked,
while washing stripped all over:“Ahmad’s a gentleman,” protested Archie.When I went to wash before our evening meal I found a canvas bath,
larger than the one at Shukra, a small shaving mirror over a basin and a niche
in the wall, a large drum of water, an aluminium jug with which to scoop it
out, a wooden crate on which there was Archie’s toothbrush and paste in a
chipped enamel mug, his cut-throat razor and a soap box.Towels were hung over a piece of string tied
across one corner.The wall separating
the bathroom from Archie’s room contained a communicating window which Archie
had politely shut.The door was
of
slatted wood, with large gaps between the slats.Everything indicated a bachelor establishment.

“I’m afraid
it’s very primitive,”
apologised Archie, “but I told Richard to warn you.My
wife and I had a charming house on the
other side of the village.I’ll
show it
to you tomorrow.But the scoundrel
who
owned it turned us out because we refused to pay the exorbitant rent he
demanded.Kitty went home with the
children and I moved in here.I
hope you
won’t find it too uncomfortable.”

So far the
major discomfort had been flies while washing.I had stripped to the waist in order to soap off some of the dust and
the flies settled stickily in the soap wherever my hand was not operating.

We went to
bed early that night after another excellent meal, with a very warming amount
of whisky afterwards.It was cool
enough
for us to need a blanket.We slept
well
with the oil lamp turned down low.

Dec27th.

Richard
woke up in the morning covered with bites.We suspected sandflies, as there was building going on outside, below
the window.We washed summarily
in the
open air bathroom, shook a quantity of dust out of our clothes and even more
out of our shoes and went across for breakfast.Ali’s idea of breakfast was decidedly English:fried sausages and bacon, fried egg and fried
bread, coffee, toast and Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade.After breakfast Archie lit a pipe and then
told Ahmad that he was ready for anyone wishing to see him.Archie was not expected back until the following
day, so there was only one caller instead of the usual stream.He was a lean man, about five foot seven or
eight inches in height, with an intelligent, handsome but untrustworthy-looking
face; his long, oiled, black hair was piled up in a top knot on his head with
an indigo-coloured strip of material tied around it.His chest was bare and stained almost black
with indigo.He was wearing a blue-black
skirt, the local indigo-coloured foutah, held in place by a dark leather
cartridge belt, of decidedly business-like proportions.An even more deadly-looking rifle was slung
over his shoulder.He had come to
ask a
favour of Archie:permission to
build a
fort in the middle of the souq, the local market place, which is part of his
territory.Archie knew that he wanted
to
do this, believed it to be a bad thing since it would intimidate other tribes
coming there to sell, and would give the man too much life-and-death
power.He had already decided to
refuse
him.The parley was carried with
many
smiles and apparent friendliness, with Ahmad assisting as interpreter where
necessary.Archie’s Arabic
is fluent but
the various dialects sometimes make it difficult for him.

Archie
allowed the tribal leader to have his say and then told him that not only would
he not give him the permission that if ever he found him attempting to build
the fort against his orders – the sentence was finished with a throat-slitting
gesture of finger drawn across throat, a threat which sent the Arab tribesmen
into fits of genuine laughter.We
then
all shook hands and the visitor left, smiling happily and broadly.I wondered what was in his mind?Defiance when Archie was away on leave?
Perhaps.

“Come along
with me to the souq,” said Archie, Jumping up, “you can get an idea of the size
of the local market and see where this damned scoundrel hopes to build.”

There was no doubt that
Archie is
well-liked and trusted in Mudia.As we
drove along the dusty tracks through the village, past the big ilb beneath
which the carpenters work, across the large square in front of the school, past
the place where the local lord of the manor, Aden-educated, was building a
second house for additional relatives, past the magnificent garden where he was
sinking a well in order to begin a new venture, the cultivation of oranges and
lemons – wherever we went men and children rushed out to greet us with very
genuine smiles of good-will on their faces.

The souk
was about half an hour’s drive away, out in the middle of the valley.There were no buildings of any kind.Nothing but men and cattle and goods set down
in the middle of the dusty desert, in the full glare of the sun.The brilliant green millet growing in the
distance, the low-growing succulent scrub, the dark shadows on the mountains
gave a degree of coolness, but the souk itself was hot and smelly, and very,
very, dusty.

We hadn’t
struck a very good day.Cattle,
spices,
cereals, a quantity of very rough basket work, some very cheap, gaudy
jewellery, cheap cotton cloth, and that was about all.The size of the market varies greatly since
most of those who go to it are tribesmen from tribes many miles away who may
have had to walk for two days or more to reach it, and who consequently will
probably not go every week.We wandered
around, getting progressively stained with indigo from the many hand-shakes
with tribesmen who knew Archie.The
would-be fort builder was there too.I
wondered how he had reached the souk so quickly.Perhaps camels are as fast as jeeps over the
bumpy desert tracks.Whenever I
tried to
take a photo of anything –camels with their knees tied together, handsome
little goats-herds with kids I their arms, the spice vendor with his flat
baskets of ginger and rice, groups of tribesmen with enviably luxuriant crops
of hair – as soon as I opened the camera crowds surged round me and completely
hid what I was trying to take.Whenever
that happened Ahmad plunged into the crowd, arms waving, and scattered them,
and I took the photo hastily without real aim before the next crowd had time to
gather.

One or two baskets looked
attractive enough to buy, though the workmanship was rough and the cracks were
thick with dust.They were not unlike
Sardinian basket ware, though they were much coarser and their patterns,
instead of being picked out in bright reds and greens and oranges, were mostly
in blue and purple.

I had hoped
to find some silver jewellery, but there was none.Ever since the Jews left the country two
years ago there has been practically none available, as they were the principal
silversmiths.

“Let’s go
back via the school, Ahmad,” said Archie “Commander and Mrs Clay can make a tour
of inspection and then write rude comments in the visitors’ book.”

Ahmad looked a little
doubtful.Perhaps he was afraid that we
really might disfigure his book with unkind comments.I tried to explain that I was something of a
schoolmistress too and that we only came to admire, not to criticize, but he
did not seem reassured.

The school was on the
side of the
square opposite to the dar and was an impressive building resembling the one at
Shukra, but with slightly bigger rooms and a beautiful arched alcove running
along the entrance side of it, like one side of a cloister.There
were small Arab boys of all ages from
three or four to eleven or twelve, grouped in four classes of about twenty to
thirty boys in each.One class was
studying the Koran, another Arab history, another arithmetic, and the lowest
form was learning how to write.We
were
introduced to the teachers in turn.They
were all pupil teachers – one as old as sixteen, the others younger.The teacher in the history class and the
teacher in the Divinity class were self-possessed and went onconfidently teaching in front of us.The Arithmetic teacher called out a small
sturdy boy and got him to recite a poem in Arabic.Though he spoke a different language, the
small boy might have been any bright boy of any class anywhere.His voice took on the false shrill note and
overemphatic, declamatory tone of all children forced to show off as exhibits.

The small
creatures learning to write their alphabet were lovely to see:there were nearly forty of them squatting on
the floor at tiny low desks, tongues out, concentrating hard.When we came in they stopped writing and
stared at us withenormous innocent
eyes.Many of them were very beautiful
and most of
them looked extremely well-nourished.Their teacher, aged twelve, was terror-struck by our intrusion and quite
unable to go on.He stammered a
word or
two and we left the room quickly, feeling sorry for him.The room at the end was for handicrafts and
contained a number of imaginative clay models and paintings and paper
cut-outs.The standard was high,
especially in the modelling.There
was
one terrifying portrait-head of a very evil-looking man, and a fine recumbent
cat, with an exaggeratedly feline expression on its face, of smug gloating.

We thanked Ahmad and
wrote
politely in the visitors’ book and then left.As we stepped outside into the dazzling sunlight we were met by a
blue-black figure: the would-be fort builder, back from the Souk.His smiling persistence won my admiration and
I asked Richard to photograph me shaking hands with him.The tribesman was delighted and clasped my
hand warmly, leaving a generous layer of indigo behind.

Outside the
Dar there was a large crowd of men waiting to see ‘Archie.He had to select half a dozen men as new
recruits for the Tribal guards.The
Tribal Guards bear the same relationship to the Government Guards as the County
Police do to Scotland Yard.They
are
recruited locally from the various tribes, a handful from each to prevent
ill-feeling.They deal with all
the
smaller problems of law and order, and act as a display of force wherever it is
needed.For anything really serious
the
Government Guards, with longer years of service, more careful training and better
equipment, are called in. Six men were needed.Some seventy had turned up, having heard in some mysterious way of the
vacancies which only been announced two days before.Many of them had made a two-day journey on
the off-chance of being chosen.“Gives
them something to do,” said Archie, “they have to make the time pass somehow.”

They squatted in the
dust in the
glaring sunlight, blobs of vivid colour.Some were dressed in the conventional indigo foutah, and their
stiffened, brightly-polished, indigo head-band reflected the sun like a
mirror.Others were dressed in coloured
foutahs, in shades ranging through all the colours of the spectrum.They seemed to have no sensitivity about the
matching of colours – a special clash of a variety of reds was one of the favourites
toilettes.A Government Guard gave
an
order and they immediately ranged themselves in a semi-circle, standing
shoulder to shoulder and giggling like a class of schoolgirls.Archie walked stiffly out, dressed in long
white drill trousers and white shirt, and white Arab headdress.He examined each man’s papers and consulted
with Ahmad.No paper testified to
less
than good.

“Means
nothing at all,” said Archie, “the previous employer’s way of saying that the
man’s a scoundrel.Can’t
trust anybody with
less than excellent.”Those
without
papers are rejected instantly and sent packing, not without some protestation. Finally
a short list of twenty is decided on and the lucky twenty are led inside the
fort to be questioned more closely.Being a woman I was not allowed to attend the proceedings, but I managed
to spy on them secretly through the bars of a window in Archie’s sitting
room.It was amusing to see the
behaviour of the rejected applicants.They flung arms round each others’ necks, sparred, tickled each other in
the ribs, and indulged generally in schoolboyish horseplay, all with a wide
grin of apparent happiness on their faces, as though they were relieved at
being unsuccessful.A few walked
off
hand in hand, smiling affectionately at one another.Across the dusty desert tracks, late arrivals
could be seen straggling up.When
they
heard the news from those who had not been selected, they turned round with
them and philosophically went away again.

Archie came
up to the sitting room a quarter of an hour later.Six reliable men from three different tribes
had been chosen.The best candidate
of
all had, alas, to be rejected, as he was the son of a slave.He3 was a magnificent young man, tall,
strong, dignified, obviously intelligent and responsible.But because he was the son of a slave he
would never be able to command respect in the others.He went away in tears.

“We’ve
earned our drinks this morning.What’s
yours?” enquired Archie.

Archie had
arranged a tea party for me that afternoon with the ladies in the household of
the wealthy experimenter in orange-and-lemon-cultivation.It was strictly a purdah party.The two ladies from the Danish mission had
also been invited, as interpreters for me.I was driven there at half past four in the Land Rover and led in by a
toothless female servant and a bevy of small children.The ground floors of Arab houses have a
completely unfinished appearance.The
rough stone walls, the mud floors, the complete lack of any furnishings, and
often of any systematic cleaning, reminds me of English basement cellars.

The ladies
were waiting to greet me on the first floor at the top of some stone
stairs.I was introduced first to
Ali’s
sister.She was about thirty-five,
and
had an authoritative air as though she governed the household.She was pretty and plump and lively, with
black, well-oiled hair, covered by a loose, hand-woven net in black and red, in
texture not unlike the fawn and blue dishcloths we use in England for washing
up.Her face was without make-up,
but
there was delicate tattooing on her forehead and between her eyebrows.Her dress, by Western standards, was
completely shapeless – a broad strip of bright blue satin, sewn down the sides,
with holes for the neck and arms.It
was
gathered in at the waist by a heavy silver belt from which dangled the keys of
the household in a large bunch.She
wore
beautiful silver ear-rings, like small bird-cages, and her feet were, of
course, bare.In shaking hands,
or
rather in having my hand stroked and patted by her, I felt I was being
introduced to the Middle Ages.I
was
greeted, and patted too, by Ali’s wife, younger, with sad, cow like eyes and a
very large, attractive mouth.She
was
shortly expecting a baby and her face had a patient beautiful expression.They took me into their sitting room, which
was also Ali’s sister’s bedroom – and there, perhaps as a concession to me as a
European, or perhaps as a result of Ali’s Aden upbringing, I was given a wicker
chair to sit in.There were three
chairs
and two beds in the room and that was all.The walls were bare, the floors were bare, there were no tables.The ladies from the Danish mission sat in the
other two chairs.All the rest of
the
party of women and children who had followed us in, clustered round, standing
or sitting on the floor, or squatting on the beds.Since I speak no Arabic, all the conversation
had to be carried out through Miss Nielsen, and I tried to convey my happiness
and being with them by smiling broadly.We drank tea, heavily sweetened, ate chocolate cake made by Ali’s sister
according to a recipe supplied by Miss Nielsen, discussed and praised the
children, of whom there were several.The
eldest little boy, Ali’s sister’s only child, had been ill – a tubercular germ
was suspected.Now he was better
but was
still very pale and heavy-eyed and fractious.Miss Nielsen told me that he was spoilt on account of his illness.Only the sister and little boy ate with us.
Miss Nielsen explained that it would not be considered polite for the others to
do so.They slipped away one by
one and
then quietly came back again. I hoped that they were slipping off for a cup of
tea in secret.They asked questions
about where I came from, whether I was married, how many children I had.The idea of my working was too difficult to
explain to them and I was obliged to let them consider me a lady of
leisure.Every now and again I felt
a
soft hand on my face, on my knee, stroking my back, feeling my arm.It was one of the children creeping up to see
if I was real or perhaps to feel the texture of my skin and clothes.The children were lovely to look at, with
very large eyes, beautiful dark olive skins and very well-formed bodies.The little girls’ hair was thickly oiled and
twisted into innumerable cork-screw curls starting right from the tops of their
heads, an elaborate coiffeur which must have taken a lot of time to prepare.

“They have
plenty of time to spare” said Miss Nielsen, and added that they always washed
their hair once a fortnight, which surprised me since the oil gave it a dirty
look of longer standing.The little
girls had a lively air of freedom about them which those who had reached
puberty seemed to lose.The seclusion
of
purdah must be very hard to bear at first, after having been allowed to wander
about freely in the outside world.

After tea we talked
clothes, in
true female fashion.The latest way of
wearing the fishnet bead veil was discussed and the lopped-up style on the top
of the head – a very becoming style – was declared old-fashioned.It was time to go.I was distressed by the language difficulty
and my smile became a positive Cheshire-cat grin in an effort to convey my
gratitude.I was taken as far as
the
threshold by Ali’s sister, clasping me tightly round the waist.We shook hands affectionately and she
disappeared abruptly, afraid, I imagined, of being seen from the road outside.

I asked Miss
Nielsen more about their lives. “What do they do all day?” I asked.“How do they manage to make the time pass, with
no reading, no going out, none of the social round of Western women?” “Oh they
have plenty to do” said Miss Nielsen a little severely, “they cook and wash
clothes, make their dresses, gossip, dance among themselves.Some of the younger ones are even beginning
to learn to read and write now.”

“Tell me,” I added “what do
they wear under their dresses?
What kind of corsets and brassieres do they have, and petticoats and so on?”

“Nothing at all, absolutely nothing at
all,” said Miss
Nielsen, “though I have persuaded some of the more enlightened ones to wear
knickers.”

Dec 28th.

Ali called
us at 6.30 with some tea.We jumped
out
of bed and looked out of the window.The
air was so clear that the mountains many miles away seemed just outside the
window.The sun crept slowly up
behind
them and its first rays spread out and coloured the jagged, volcanic outlines
first purple, then red, then pink, and finally golden.Once the golden rays had touched them, the
sky caught my attention by contrast and seemed startlingly blue.Black mountains, golden-fringed blue sky,
emerald green millet and mud-coloured villages.The clarity of the colours of the early morning was unforgettable and
soon passed when the heat began to shimmer.I remembered what somebody had said to me before I left Milan:

“Aden’s
a dull place, abysmally
dull – but I’d go there again just for the colours.There’s nothing to beat ‘em.”

We sat down to breakfast at
eight
and Archie insisted on my breaking my long-established habit of taking nothing
but a cup of coffee.

“Don’t know
what time we shall be
back,” he said “probably not till late afternoon.We’re
only taking fruit and a few sweets with
us.You’ll be starving by
then if you
don’t eat now.” I ate a fried egg and tinned tomato and a piece of toast, and
started off feeling rather over-heated.There were four of us in the Land Rover: Archie, who was driving,
Richard and I in front with him, and Ahmad Ali in the back.We were followed by a truck with an escort of
Tribal Guards.I had grown accustomed
by
now to the bucking, rocking, lunging motion over the road and scarcely noticed
it, having learnt to sway and lurch and cling on to the rail at the right
moments.The dust was less easy
to
accept, and Imuffled my headcloth
round
my mouth and nose, and breathed hotly into it.It brought back the day when the children were very small and I went
resolutely about the business of looking after them with a white cotton mask
tied over my face, whenever I had a cold.Now the discomfort was less because my nose wasn’t in constant need of
blowing, though it tickled a great deal.

Archie
explained to us that funds had been allocated to him for road-building, and
that he had been trying to make up the surface of the road from Mudia to
Lahmar, the place we were to visit and where he was hoping to build a
fort.He had had difficulty in getting
the work on the road done, and we went over several stretches which seemed to
have been completely neglected. “Can’t get ‘em to do the bits in between the villages,”
he protested, “afraid they’ll be shot as soon as they get out into the
open.Can’t really blame the
poor devils.Road’s no use
to them.Camel tracks all they want.”

The first stop was at
a fort
about ten miles beyond Mudia occupied by Government guards.It
was very clean and cool, and stood just
outside the village, together with the new school, a neat, small, white-washed
building, recently built, and with handsome carved wooden shutters in the
windows.The guards had prepared
tea for
us, a particular brand of thick powdered tea with plenty of milk and sugar
already added, which was to become more than familiar to me as the day went
on.It was poured boiling hot out
of a
kettle into oriental cups without handles.

The courtyard in the
centre of
the fort contained a few bushes on a raised mound and looked refreshingly green
and cool.Richard tried to photograph
Archie and me sitting at the top of the steps outside the guard room, but the
result when developed later was not very brilliant.The wall was too white and the sun too bright
so that sky and wall merged into each other.The top half of me in white blouse and white turban was invisible and so
was the bottom half of Archie in white trousers – a curious photo of two
interestingly mutilated individuals.The
shrubs, which we had hoped would add beauty to the photo, covered the whole
foreground with a black blob.The
other
shots of the same scene were equally unsuccessful.Shot no 2 showed Archie on his way towards
the steps to join me.Here it was
not
the sunlight but the bushes which truncated him, and his pipe showed
disproportionately prominent.Shot
no 3
was a fine snap of the bottom of a Tribal guard bending over a large drum of
water placed beside the bushes.As
we
were not yet aware of the shortcomings of our efforts at photography, we used
up two rolls, twenty-four photos, during the day.It was not till later we realised that
Arabian sunlight needs special treatment.

Ahmad Ali had arranged
for the
builder of the Archie’s new fort to join us here and we sat round in the guard
room chatting and waiting for him to arrive.The guard room led to a sun roof, and every few minutes Archie or
Richard or Ali or one of the Guards went out on to the roof or climbed up a
ladder to the turret above, to scan the horizon and see if the builder was in
sight.I so often feel disappointed
when
I arrive at a place and find that it is unlike what I had imagined/here in the fort my heart thumped with excitement
at finding fantasy becoming reality:Bluebeard and sister Anna with the builder in the place of
Bluebeard.We all shaded our eyes
and
looked in vain.The builder was
nowhere
to be seen, neither with the naked eye nor through Richard’s binoculars.

Archie decided to go
on ahead and
leave Ahmad to bring the builder in the truck.The land Rover had to go more slowly and, with any luck, the truck would
catch us up.As we walked out to
get
into the Land Rover, we met a young man in khaki shirt and shorts,
white-skinned, fair-haired, who was chatting in fluent Arabic with the guards.
Archie explained that he was Mancini, a young National-service man, of Italian
origin, but London born and bred, an East Ender with a genuine cockney
accent.He had been evacuated during
the
war and had received practically no schooling, had been drafted out to Aden,
given the job of overhauling wireless sets for the political officers in the
Protectorate, and in eight months had picked up more colloquial Arabic than
most people can achieve in years. He had taken to the Arab way of life
completely, wandering around on his own, refusing his canned rations, and
preferring to sleep and eat and talk with the Arabs.He had applied to be allowed to transfer to
the Colonial service and remain out there.

He seemed a perfect
example in
support of the theory which I hold, that frequently people are born in the
wrong country and have a deeper natural affinity with some other country.The lucky few in the course of their life
find the country which is their spiritual home.Perhaps Mancini was one of them

Once more we ploughed
our way hotly
and bumpily over furrowed sand and dust and solid lava.Once
more we jolted our backs against the
seat and our foreheads against the windscreen.The heat was increasing, and I rolled up my navy serge slacks to my
knees in an effort to keecool.It was little use.Where the thick roll clung around my knees
and the sweat began to drip and I felt the seat of my trousers sticking hotly
to the canvas-covered cushion.Incidentally,
the canvas-covered cushion was an added thorn in my heat-pricked flesh. Every time the Land Rover jolted, the seat
slipped forward and unless I immediately slid it back I had to choose between
sitting on the edge of the cushion with my knees knocking the dashboard, or
letting the cushion slip from underneath me and sitting on hard metal.Archie entertained us by pointing out flora
and fauna.Dala roses growing
thick-fleshed and bright pink on trees out of the barren mountain face, a
solitary aloe tree, an occasional snake slithering out of our way, the
inevitable kite hovering overhead, loaded camels and their drivers, at a
standstill by the roadside, saluting us with dignity as we drove by.We pulled up at a short distance from the
fort to which we were heading, to wait for the truck to catch up with us.

“Damn that fellah,”
said Archie.
“No idea of time.Should have been at
the Dar waiting for us.Lost half
the
day already.” And turning to me, with his considerable charm he added: “Hope you
don’t mind waiting, Kay, Can’t do without the fellah.Must show him what he’s got to do.”

I protested I did not
mind at all
and got out of the jeep to ease my legs and try and dry off the seat of my
trousers.We shaded our eyes with our
hands and looked back along the road.

“Any signs?” asked
Archie, busy
with his pipe.

“No, nothing yet,”
we replied.

Richard and I lit cigarettes
and
we all smoked in silence.There was no
noise except for the sizzling of the engine, as it began to cool down, and an
occasional bark from a dog in the distance.Heat shimmered over everything, blurring sand and scrub, and making even
the immovable mountains sway as we gazed.One of two wisps of white cotton cloud floated above the biggest
ridge.The rest of the sky was unbroken,
brilliant blue, so dazzling that my eyes watered behind dark glasses when I
looked up.

Richard and Archie climbed
up a
dust mound to get a clearer view. “I think I can see something right over
there”, said Richard.“Where?” queried
Archie doubtfully.“Can’t
see a thing
myself.” “Perhaps I’m wrong” said Richard good-temperedly.They lapsed into silence and I got back into
the car, hoping that it might be cooler in the shade of the canvas roof.

“There”,
said Richard
suddenly,“over there! I can see
something moving.”

“Imagination,
old man” said
Archie cryptically, and disbelievingly.I strained my eyes to see but saw nothing except quivering heat and
dust.None of us spoke for a few
moments.“It is moving,”
Richard called
out, “look over there.Can’t
you see the
dust?”

And now we all saw.Far away, back in the direction of the fort
which we had left an hour earlier, a tall spout of dust could be seen moving
along.

“Dust devil,”
said Archie.

But this time Richard
was not to
be dissuaded.“I don’t think it is,”
he
said.“It’s flatter
and doesn’t seem to
be whirling.Looks to me like the
kind
of dust a truck would stir up behind it.” We shaded our eyes and watched the
faint, smoke-like wisp in the distance.“By Jove, I believe you’re right,” said Archie with relief, “It’s
moving
this way.”A quarter of an
hour later
the truck drew up;.Ahmad got out
smiling good-temperedly.“He
was late”
was all he said.

We looked at the builder
in the
seat beside the driver – he was a sallow, sombre-faced man with an
indigo-coloured turban, a white shirt, a purple coloured foutah, and a tick,
grey, machine-made, Western type pullover – a cartridge belt and gambia and
rifle were worn over the top of it.In
spite of the heat he looked drawn and pale and almost cold, as if he were
shivering.

“Come along,”
said Archie, “we’re
late.As we drove along towards the fort
Archie told us what his aim was.He
pointed out to us the barrenness of the land round.

“Want to get them
to grow millet
here too,” he said.But millet could
only be grown if peaceful relations existed between the tribes.The Jaadini tribe on the south back of the
Waddy Lahmar was at present outside the boundary of Dathina state, but Archie
hoped eventually to persuade it to take advantage of an advice and protection
treaty. The first step had been taken in the building of the road through the
territory.Where there had previously
been a camel track there now ran what I was beginning to nickname in my own
mind a Protectorate road:the usual
alternating sand and boulder-sized stone surface.Hitherto the tribal leader had levied a toll
on all strangers from outside who used the camel route.Archie hoped during our visit to persuade him
to accept a sum in shillings, the equivalent of what he would normally receive
in a year from the road.

“Anxious to keep
the prestige
that levying the tax gives him.Doesn’t
need the money,” said Archie, “fabulously rich without.But we’ll never get peaceful millet-growing
conditions unless the road is free to everybody.”The fort, when built, would give protection,
prevent intimidation; and check any abuse of authority about access to the
waddy.

We reached our destination
at
midday, after driving crazily across the dusty plain, trying to keep up with
the truck.With its higher undercarriage
and longer wheel base, it could plunge along the deeply-furrowed track far more
rapidly that the Land Rover, and we arrived five minutes after it to find Ahmad
and the builder waiting with the tribal guards and the workmen to greet
us.They all saluted us and shook
hands,
bowing slightly as they did so.Their
handshakes were more vehement than any I had previously experienced, and each
time I had difficulty in keeping my arm from swinging violently at right angles
to me. Handshakes over, we climbed up the small hill on which the fort was to be
built.It was a perfectly selected
site,
a small eminence overlooking the plain in all directions, commanding the road,
the waddy and the Rabizi tribal land on the north side of the waddy as well as
the Jaadini land itself.The tribal
guards had erected a tent encampment on the summit, over the foundations of the
fort.Three feet or so of square
walls
were already standing.Ahmad told
Archie
that the tribal guard wished to offer us lunch.It was an unexpected and very generous offer and Archie, knowingwhat it would cost the guards wished he had
been able to prevent it by arriving much earlier.Archie and Richard were invited inside the
tent.Out hosts’ neglect of
the ‘ladies
first’ principle was entirely understandable.Their own women folk do not appear in public at all, or if they do, they
are heavily veiled.I was, besides,
a
rare specimen in those parts: the first white woman to be seen there ever, as
far as Archie knew.

I had to stoop down
to get into
the tent: it was a low awning stretched over the three foot, unmortared, stone
wall of the fort.I took off my sandals
before stepping in, and walked barefoot across the matting to the other
side.As I did so a whole carpet
of
flies rose from the matting, and buzzed around me.The four walls were lined with cotton-covered
sides and leather-covered cushions.I
sat down in one corner on the cushions in the required fashion, with my legs
crossed and the soles of my feet pointing downwards.Archie and Richard sat on my right along the
same side, with Richard in the central place of honour.Cups of tea were poured out as an aperitif
for us from the customary kettle(government issue, I wondered?) and as usual it was strong, boiling hot
and heavily laced with milk and sugar.For the flies it was a huge treat, and they poised greedily in a black
ring round the rim of my cup.A
particularly polite Government guard, one of the bodyguard, brought over in the
truck, sat and fanned it energetically for me whenever my fingers were not on
the cup, but the flies sat unmoved;the
sticky tea was too tempting.I gulped
the mixture down quickly, scalding my throat, in the way one takes medicine,
just to have done with it.But when
I
was not looking, the mixture was supplied as before, and I was faced with a
second cupful.I slipped it across
surreptitiously to Richard, a copious tea drinker, whose cup was empty and
substituted it for mine.It was
a ruse
which failed. His empty cup in front of me was then filled up, and I was back
to where I started from – a cup of hot, thick, stewed tea.There was nothing for it but to leave it.

The light in the tent
was dim,
and shot with brilliant patches of sunlight, through the cracks and the
opening.The meal was brought in – first
the huge, flat, griddle cakes, chepattis, usually made of local wholemeal flour
and very good to eat, but now made of white government flour in our honour and
tasting rather insipid.They are
like
huge pancakes, and the guard picked them up one by one carelessly in his
fingers and slapped them down on the rectangular mats that had been placed in
front of us.Then three bowls were
brought in steaming, one large and two small.The large one contained boiled goat piled high of every conceivable
cut.Both Archie and Richard were
served
first, to everything, and each time Archie ostentatiously handed whatever he
had been given across to me.

“Teach ‘em
how to behave to the
ladies,” he said.A carefully tied
bundle of ropey intestines was placed in front of Richard, as the chief
delicacy for the chief guest.I
dared
him a look to imitate Archie and pass them on to me! I selected as small a
portion with as little meat on it as I could find.To explain that I am a vegetarian would have
been impossible even through the excellent interpretership of Ahmad Ali.The two small bowls contained a thick sauce
with odds and ends in it, rather like the tomato meat sauce the Italians add to
their spaghetti: it had a vague curry flavour and was very good.I dipped my bread in it and made a reasonable
show of eating and toyed with the meat.I found it difficult to tear it off the bone with my right hand
only.Arab etiquette requires one
not to
touch one’s food with one’s left hand.The attentive government guard on my left noticed my scanty portion, whipped
out his knife, and cut off huge slices of goat to place in front of me.When no one was looking I managed to slip
some of them to Richard, and the rest I put back into the bowl at a convenient
moment, when the guard was not looking.While the meal was being eaten we did not talk.A tribal guard stood in front of us, waving a
towel at the flies and occasionally, with misplaced enthusiasm, flicking it in
our faces, at which we all laughed, he the loudest of all.After the meal, coffee with ginger was served
for those who liked it and tea for the rest.I chose the coffee and liked it.It tasted very little of coffee and rather strongly of ginger.

More tea was brought
in for those
who had not had enough, and then Archie was asked if he would see the tribal
leader with his right-hand man. “Bring ’emin,” said Archie.I had been told
that the tribe was a very wealthy one and that its leader was one of the
richest men for miles around.I
had
expected magnificence.What I saw
was a
wizened-looking tiny old man, black all over, dressed in the briefest of indigo
foutahs, and with his greasy black hair tied back with string.To European eyes he looked like a
beggar.In age he might have been
anything from seventy to a good one hundred and fifty.His followers claimed that he was, in fact,
well over a hundred.It was not
until he
squatted down and accepted the offer of a smoke, that I noticed that he was
completely blind.Smoking in those
parts
is communal, from a kind of hookah which is handed round. You apply the pipe to a hold in the side of
the bowl and inhale.The head of
the
Jaadini fumbled for the hole and had to have his hand guided to it.

Archie’s introductory
speech was
persuasive propaganda.He looked
forward, he said, to an era of peace and prosperity for the tribe.They had seen that peaceful conditions had
brought improvements in the Dathina area (he waved his hand expressively in the
direction of Mudia); whole fields of healthy millet had sprung up where
previously no one had dared to plough and sow.Now, with the fine road through their own territory, and the protection
they would get from the fort, they, too, could enjoy prosperity on ascale they had never reached before.Moreover, when Major X came back from his
leave, the British agent for the W.A.P., then he could promise them unlimited
protection and advice for the asking.Archie’s few tactful, restrained and admirably chosen words were
translated rapidly by Ahmad, whose face on such occasions became mask-like and
registered nothing.When one considered
the independence and initiative characteristic of him normal, his anonymity as
interpreter was a master-piece of self-withdrawal, though a flicker, now and
again, suggested a certain pruning and vetting of his material.

“Tell him, too”
added Archie,
“that Major X is coming back in a week and that he will never allow him to levy
a toll on the road – and that’s all got to stop.” When Ahmad had finished, it
was the old man’s turn.He spoke in a
plaintive monotone, eyes gazing into nothingness, and his speech lasted a long
time.I could not understand what
he
said, but I watched the steadiness of his expression and the authoritative air
of his small body.And as I watched,
he
ceased to look like a beggar and became a leader, a man used to making
decisions, of life and of death, a man who must have seen all sides of life and
witnessed much violence – someone whose position had been achieved and
maintained by a subtle combination of craft and ruthlessness and force.When he had finished, there was a pause, and
the hookah was handed to him by a tribal guard who, this time, guided the stem
of the pipe for him to the hole.

“What’s
he say?” asked Archie,
who had understood some, but not all, of the old man’s speech.“He says, in effect”, replied Ahmad, with
unexpected brevity, “that his business is with you and not with Major X, and
that he wishes to continue the toll.” “The devil he does,” said Archie explosively.
“Tell him he damn well can’t, and that I am only acting for Major X, and that
this road has damn well got to be free for everybody.”

A tactful translation
of these
words by Ahmad was a signal for a general discussion.The
old man’s aides-de-camp added their bit,
the shivering builder in his grey pullover had something to say too, and now
even Ahmad needed a tribal guard as interpreter, as several dialects were
involved.The old man’s flesh
quivered
and flapped slightly in its pouchy folds as he talked.His chief aide-de-camp, whose hair was so
long and piled in such convolutions on his head that he looked like some
astonishing Pantomime dame gone astray, gave coy, sideling glances at everybody
and spoke shyly at the old man, instead of generally to the assembly.By this time it was nearly three o’clock and
we had been sitting there for some two and a half hours.My legs were numb and I had been unable to be
alone for a single moment since breakfast.

“We’ll leave
them to talk this over,”
said Archie, jumping up. “You stay, Ahmad, and see what happens.We’ll go down and see the water and stretch
our legs a bit.Come along, you
two,” he
said to Richard and me.I felt immensely
grateful, and interpreted this as another example of Archie’s tact.

The only way to the
waddy was by
a steep rock face sloping abruptly down.To the guards, both government and tribal, it was nothing.They walked down, barefoot, as though they
were walking downstairs.To me,
in my
rather loose sandals, it was a problem.I tried to pick my way as hastily as I could, to avoid holding up the
party, but we had not got very far down before I found myself poised with one
foothold of rock, one foot swinging in space, one hand clutching at a root for
support and a big drop below me.One
of
the government guards, small, wiry, with a strong but expressionless face, gave
me his hand and showed me the way down.A trio of tribal guards walked slowly down just below me to catch me as
I fell – or so I hoped.

The water flowed wonderfully
cool
and clear in the river bed.It was
dappled in places with shoals of very tiny fish, minnow-sized, basking in the
sun just below the surface.“Cause
of
all the trouble in these parts,” said Archie, “source of all the scraps and
fighting.”It was a series
of
intermittent pools separated by a gravel bank, the first water I had seen since
I left the shore at Shukra, six foot of water flowing quietly through dry and
dusty desert, the only source of water for miles around, the most previous of
all substances: the key to life for everyone there.How understandable the tribal battles became,
if you considered the struggle they had for this basic element of life.

“If you care to
walk on,” said
the ever-tactful Archie, “we’ll wait here for you.” I surveyed the rocks ahead
of me and saw one which looked large enough to hide me from view, but as I made
towards it, two stout tribal guards detached themselves from the rest,
faithfully determined to stand bodyguard. I turned and
gave Archie a beseeching look, he
barked a word or two of command and I went on alone.When I returned I found, instead of the
peaceful group I had left, a battle raging –not, as I was afraid, battle
against the Rabizi tribe from the opposite shore, but against a thin,
colourless snake, three or four feet long.; he had been found nestling in the
rocks, coiled up near the water’s edge, and was now being despatched with
well-aimed stones.The change on
the
faces of the steady-looking guards was curious: they had become boys at play,
and were shouting with excitement.The
snake, once dead, was held dangling at arm’s length by one of the guards, and
Richard took a photo of him standing stiffly and proudly upright.

“Let’s get
back and see what’s
happened,” said Archie.Normally a
downward path over steeply-sloping, uneven ground is more difficult to
negotiate than an upward climb – but when I looked up to where the fort was, I
doubted if I would ever get there.The
rocky surface had footholds, plenty of them, but like the finest blackberries,
they were always just out of reach.I
started off behind Archie, determined somehow to achieve the impossible, and
within two minutes had got into a position from which I could neither step
forward, nor upward, nor backward without, as I imagined, plunging to my death
down below.I have no doubt that
it was
not really so critical:my fear
of
slopes both up and down was tricking me into exaggerating the situation.But I was very relieved when the guard, who
had brought me down, jumped agilely to my side, took my hand and, in quicker
time than I would have believed possible, almost literally hauled me up to the
top.He leapt and sprang and heaved
and
never put a foot wrong.He somehow
arranged for there always to be exactly the right foothold, at exactly the
right distance for me. Any apprehension I might have felt was quelled by the
firm hold of his hand which betokened enough strength in his arm to check me if
I fell.The others came up more
slowly
and probably with greater dignity.I
stood at the top waiting for them, knees sagging, breath coming in short gasps,
sweat pouring off me, dizzy in the head, yet with a great sense of pride in my
fondly-imagined mountain goat propensities.

When we got back to
the fort the
meeting had just broken up. “Well?” queried Archie, as Ahmad walked up to
him.“They have agreed,” replied Ahmad.

We went back into the
fly-ridden
tent for more tea and the final ceremony of financial compensation: a silver
token of mutual good will.Archie had
brought a small bag of silver shillings to be divided up proportionately among
the head of the tribe, his right-hand man and the builder.While the silver was slowly being counted and
re-counted by Ahmad and one of the guards, we drank tea and ginger coffee and
cooled ourselves in the breeze blowing through the tent.I watched the blind old man smoking his
hookah.His face betrayed nothing,
neither pleasure nor regret, and he appeared not to hear the clink of
coins.Then the money had been divided
into four neat piles it was handed surreptitiously to each man in turn, the
rest of the audience putting on an admirable act of indifference and ignorance
as to what was going on.This ceremony
over, Archie prepared himself to make a closing speech, but just before he
began the old tribal leader leaned forward and spoke to Ahmad, whereupon Ahmad
got up and went over to him.A whispered
conversation was held, and, to my surprise, I saw the money being returned to
Ahmad.

“What’s
happening?” I asked
Ahmad, “does he feel it isn’t enough?” “No,” replied Ahmad “he has asked me to
keep the money for him.He is afraid his
friends will rob him of it.”A
few brief
words of goodwill and encouragement from Archie and the meeting was over. We
shook hands all round and went out into the hot sun once more.

The drive back was without
incident.The sun set very beautifully
over the Arabian Matterhorn which we could see ahead of us as we lurched across
the plain.At a village two miles
or so
from Mudia we stopped to call on a locust-man.

“He’s a
lonely chap,” said
Archie, “name of Smith.Sits around here
waiting for news of locusts.When
they
come he dashes off in his Land Rover, wipes them out and comes back here again.
Rather a blank period for them now through.Spends most of his time twiddling his thumbs.He wants to make some money.Two years here and he’ll have enough to buy a
house.”

Smith had his tent pitched
on the
outskirts of the village on a bit of level ground.His
Land Rover was jacked up and in the
process of having its undercarriage painted.His tent was small and stretched over a canvas ground sheet.There was no doubt that he was pleased to see
us.

“How do you do,”
he said, getting
up from his canvas chair. ”Hope we’re not disturbing you,” said Archie,
politely.

“Not at all,” said Smith, “gladto be interrupted.Just in the middle of my two hours’ Italian
study.It’s a great treat
for me to have
company.May I offer you this chair?”
he
added, turning to me, “it’s the only one I have, so I’m afraid I can’t ask the
rest of you to sit down.One of
everything, that’s my line.One
chair, one
table, one bed, one cup, one fork, one knife, one spoon, one mosquito net, one
tent.”I sat down in the canvas
chair.

“Will you have
a lime juice in
the one glass?” he asked, “it’s all I can offer you.I don’t drink when I am on my own.”Smith was glad to talk.He
seldom saw anyone unless he went over to
chat to Archie at Mudia.He told
us how
he had arranged his day.“Most
important
to have a timetable,” he said, “often spend days here with nothing to do.Must make two years pass somehow.”

He explained that he
always kept his
watch two hours’ fast.“One candle and
one oil lamp can be rather dismal,” he said, “so I like to go to bed almost as
soon as it gets dark.But it seems
uncivilised
to go to bed at seven-thirty.So
I put
my watch on two hours and go to bed at nine-thirty or ten.It’s better walking up in the morning
too.The early hours are the coolest
but
I hate getting up early.Eight is
a far
more reasonable time to read on my watch than six o’clock.”

His day was split up
into the automatic
routine of household duties, cooking, cleaning, official correspondence if any,
jeep repairs, mending, and studying Italian and reading.“The
only thing I really do miss,” he said,
“is Hansard. I’d be happier if I could get Hansard regularly.”

On our return that evening
Archie
found a telegram awaiting him, asking him to apprehend a certain tribesman from
farther inland, who was wanted for murder.It was the second telegram of its kind since I had arrived in
Mudia.Tribal murders were literally
a
daily occurrence. “You may not have realised it, Kay,” said Archie, “but you’ve
shaken hands with at least three murderers since you’ve been here.The burly scoundrel I introduced you to
yesterday shot his enemy while he was asleep, and then stuck his head up in the
village square.The man in the next
village, who shook hands with us under the carpenters’ ilb, shot the baby of a
rival of his while it was in its mother’s arms, as she stood outside her
house.And the shifty devil who
wants to
build a fort in the souk has more than a few murders to his credit.”

December 29th

The next morning we
woke at
six-thirty as we had to make an early start if we were to reach Aden that
evening.We neither of us wanted to go
back: life at Mudia was far more stimulating and interesting than the
sophisticated daily round in Aden.But
Richard’s leave was up and I would have to fly back very shortly to Italy to
resume my work with the Council.I
wished we had been able to see more of the school.It had struck a modern note in a primitive
background and it was not possible to judge its impact after only one
visit.The interesting moment to
see it,
though, would come much later, a decade or so later on, when the generation now
squatting on the floor, tongue out, learning its alphabet, had grown up.I consoled myself by thinking that perhaps I
should be able to come back then, in ten years’ time.I would have liked, too, to see a lot more of
the ladies in purdah, and learn a little colloquial Arabic so that I could speak
to them myself. They had offered me a programme of dances if only I could stay
a few days longer.I went to say
good-bye to them at eight a.m. Ahmad had arranged for me to borrow one of their
dresses to wear at a New Year’s Eve fancy dress Ball, and I was to go and try
it on before leaving.We fetched
Miss
Nielsen from her surgery and arrived at about five past eight.The same wizened old servant let us in,
grinning excitedly, and one by one all the ladies and girls and children I had
seen at the tea party joined us.Their
enthusiasm about my visit seemed as great as it had been the first time, though
they were obviously less prepared for it.Ali’s sister greeted me with hands wet from the wash-tub and her hair
screwed back in a greasy knot.The
children were sleepy-eyed, snotty-nosed, with untidy hair, and wearing only the
briefest of grubby shirts.The little
boy, who had been ill, was whimpering, and the beautiful young mother-to-be
looked bedraggled and pale and sad.But
as soon as they saw me they clapped their hands and smiled and nodded.Ali’s sister put her arm around my waist and
led me upstairs.And there a strange
lethargy overcame us. We talked about the weather and smiled at each other,
Miss Nielsen fondled the children and enquired after the health of the
family.I had no idea of how long
Archie
had expected me to be there and began to get worried at the delay.

“Do you think
you can possibly
ask them about the dress?” I asked Miss Nielsen.

“I will try”
she replied, “but we
can’t hurry them too much.These visits
of yours will provide gossip for months and they want to make the most of
them.”

There was a little more
talk and
then one of the younger girls was sent off to fetch something.She came back with a sack-like bright red
silk dress violently decorated with appliqued patterns of reds and
purples.It was not at all clean
but
looked very splendid from a distance.We
looked at it and praised it, then Ali’s sister sent off another child to fetch
a second dress, very much like the first.Several more dresses, all like each other and all shapeless and
voluminous, arrived one by one and were examined and praised.Finally a beautifully-decorated black satin
one was brought along.The pattern
on it
round the neck and the hem and the arm holes was worked in lozenge-shaped
pieces of material in reds and greens and orange.It tried it on over my dress.It
wold have fitted over my winter coat, it
was so large.A length of very wide
material folded over and sewn down the sides, with holes left for the arms and
a hole cut for the head – it was exactly like the dresses I used to make for my
dolls or the Indian suit I once tried to make for my younger brother.

“How do I keep it in
round the
waist?” I asked Miss Nielsen

“With a belt of silver,”
she
replied, “but you could use a scarf.”

But Ali’s sister
had noticed my
gathering the dress in at the waist and had guessed what I wanted.She detached a key from the heavy bunch at
her waist and sent one of the older women off.We chatted and smiled politely for a few minutes and then the woman
returned, surrounded by little girls all peeping at me from behind her.She brought with her a massive silver belt,
made up of a dozen or more square sections which were fitted together by
running a string through slots at the top and bottom of each section.Further ornamented pieces were attached to
the bottom of each one so that they dangled and jingled as they knocked
together.It tried it round my waist
but
it would not meet.

“Heavens”, I thought
to myself,
“I must have put on a lot of weight in Aden if my waist is larger than Mrs.
Ali’s!”

But Miss Nielsen reassured
me by
explaining; “They are going to add more pieces to it – it was last worn by one
of the little girls.”

My costume was assembled
bit by
bit.After the belt was made up and in
place, a pair of silver bangles was fetched and tried on, and then a beautiful
silver necklace.By the time I had
them
all on, I began to feel literally weighed down by it all.Finally, they put a red and black net over my
hair and the dress was complete.I
could
not see myself, as there was no mirror, but the effect on the audience of women
and children was flattering.They
danced
all round me, laughing and clapping their hands with excitement and patting me
gently wherever they could reach.The
idea of a European woman dressed up in their clothes intrigued them immensely.

I asked Miss Nielsen
to thank
them very very much for the loan of it, and arranged to return it to them by
Ahmad who was coming into Aden with us and could bring it back on January 1st.We sat down and chatted
once more for a few
moments and then said good-bye.It
was
impossible to get rid of the feeling of a schoolgirl party in the dormitory.We were all girls together and whether we
were dressed in our best, as we were the first time we met, or in our working
overalls, it made no difference.In
a
society in which women are segregated for ever, with only rare visits from men,
they do not stand on ceremony with each other.Once more we shook hands and beamed happily at each other, and once more
Ali’s sister darted away as we reached the door.As I stood on the doorstep, looking to see if
the Land Rover was outside, I felt a small hand running itself up and down my
leg.I glanced down and there was
the
tiniest girl of the household smiling shyly up at me.I patted her head and she ranfriskily
away, grinning with pleasure.When
I got back to the dar, instead of seeing
irritation on Archie’s face at the delay, he seemed surprised.

“You’ve been quick,
Kay,” he said

Archie was coming with us
as far
as Zara, where we had all been invited to an early lunch.

“You’ve
had a scrap Arab lunch,
Kay.Now you can have a slap-up one in a
real palace,” he said.He
and Richard
and I and the driver got into the Land Rover.Ahmad, Mancini and a handful of guards followed us in the truck.The Sultan’s palace was one of four built on
the top of a rocky hill, springing up unexpectedly in the plain at the foot of
the mountain barrier.We turned
off the
road to Shukra and drove inland for a few miles to reach it.The site chosen for the four palaces was both
breathtakingly beautiful and staggeringly strategic.To reach the top palace, where we were
invited for lunch, we lunged our way up a terrifying path of rock and granite,
barely wide enough for the Land Rover and with a sheer drop on to the plain on
one side of it.The building of
this
narrow road was a credit to the Sultan’s engineer; so too, was the building of
the palaces, perched commandingly on the hill.My attention in driving up the sharp incline was not so much on the
beauties ahead of me, however, as on the possibility of the clutch slipping and
the gear not engaging.Missing the
gears
with no brake on that gradient would have required more than ordinary skill to
negotiate.But it was worth all
the
danger when we got to the top.As
we
stepped out of the Land Rover the Sultan’s bodyguard, in short khaki drill
suits, stood stiffly to attention in two rows lining the Palace steps.

“Come and take
the salute, old
man, and get it over.” Archie said to Richard.Taking the salute then, and at other times on our trip, amused me by its
exclusively masculine emphasis.The
solemn tilt of the jaw, the stiff attitude, the martial do-or-fie expression
made me feel I had wandered into a men’s club by mistake.Men only was now clearly written on
all their faces, so I hung back by the car, pulled loose the legs of my
trousers which had stuck to me with the heat, tidied up my turban and waited
self-effacingly.The salute over,
I was
re-admitted to the confraternity and we shook hands all round.The Sultan was away but the Sultan’s brother
welcomed us.He was a charmingly
intelligent-looking, small man, of about twenty-six, with quick bright eyes and
a friendly, almost feminine, smile.His
dress, in honour of our visit, put the rest of us, even Ahmad, in the
shade.His foutah was a plaid pattern
of
bright red and green, his shirt, hanging loose over the top, was of spotless
cream silk, his turban the finest purple satin, with gold embroidery.Round his waist was a particularly elaborate
leather cartridge belt and his gambia was of beaten gold – or so it appeared to
be.Even the canvas cross strap
--over
his shoulder was finely worked in
different coloured wools.We were
shown
into a long cool room with four windows, giving a magnificent view southwards,
right over the plain.On my best
behaviour in such royal surroundings, I slipped off my sandals before entering
the room.I then found, to my
discomfort, that no one else did, and that our host was wearing neat gym
shoes.We sat comfortably in deck
chairs,
sipping very sweet orangeade, while Archie and Ahmad and the Sultan’s brother
chatted.It was obvious that Archie
was
looked on as an old and very reliable friend.

A second supply of orangeade
was
offered us by a servant dressed in shabby khaki with a rough, white turban on
his head.The western idea of displaying
one’s wealth by dressing one’s servants well had apparently not reached this
part of Arabia.It was obvious that
the
Sultan and his brother kept their servants very much in their place:they all withdrew from the presence, walking
backward very hesitantly, as though expecting a reprimand.While we were sipping the orangeade, the
Sultan’s secretary came in and was introduced to us.He was a thin, sallow young man, with an
expression of tense alertness on his face.He had a withdrawn, apprehensive look about him which reminded me of the
builder at Lahmar.

Archie leant over and
whispered
to me: “He killed a man in the next state.There’s a price on his head and if he ever goes there, he’s a dead man.”
I looked at the secretary again.He
had
nervous, shifty gestures and his eyes were always on the doorway.

We were taken to see
the rest of
the palace.By western standards the
interior did not live up to its status.The floors and walls were rough and painted in gaudy colours.The stone staircases were chipped and not
very clean.The bedrooms were clean
but
bare, and contained only an iron bedstead with a white cover over it; they were
magnificently situated with views across the plain.The finest part of the palace was its two
balconies running north and south, so that one could sit out in the open and in
the share at any time of day, and gaze at one of the most beautiful views to be
seen anywhere.

The meal offered us
was very
palatable but somewhat westernised.There were plates to eat off, and knives and forks, and even bowls of
tinned pears as dessert.The chepattis,
made of wholemeal flour, and the rice and the various little dishes were
excellent.The Sultan’s brother
kept inviting
us to eat more.Archie and Richard
ate
as much as they could but it was Mancini who won the admiration of us all,
especially the Sultan’s brother.He
ate
enthusiastically and hugely and noisily, in true Arab style, piling what
appeared to be an almost half a kid on his chapatti, and cleaning the bone
within a few moments. He belched,
he
covered his face and right hand with meat and sauce, he flicked large
quantities of rice into his mouth, with one jerk of the fingers.In fact, he so endeared himself to the
Sultan’s brother that the conversation narrowed down to a dialogue between the
two of them or a most lively and almost affectionate kind.

We washed our hands,
as at the
beginning of the meal, with warm water poured over them by an obsequious
servant, into a basic held by another; and then dried them with a towel held by
a third servant.Back in the sitting
room, we drank ginger coffee or tea, according to our choice, and then Archie
asked Ahmad to explain to the brother what we wanted from the Sultan -a contribution of five percent a year towards
education and medical services.When
we
said good-bye, we all received invitations to come back and stay there whenever
we liked.

I had expected the Sultan’s
palace to be more magnificent and more oriental, but a misplaced, western
element of doubtful taste had crept in, presumably because of the Sultan’s
frequent visits to Aden.Gym shoes and
deck chairs clash with dust devils and volcanic mountains and silent barefooted
slaves.One impression of our lunch
at
the palace I shall never forget:the
sight of a very young boy in a coarse, short, rust-coloured foutah, standing
outside the doorway of the room while we were drinking orangeade.He was leaning casually and very gracefully
against a yellow-washed stone wall, with an expression of lazy, dream-like
interest on his face.The yellow
wall,
the rust-coloured foutah, the dark brown skin and black hair set off the purity
of his features, the slender cheeks, straight, perfectly-proportioned nose and
large, innocent, confident eyes.When
an
older servant chivvied him away, he flicked into life, lost his soulful look
and ran off giggling.

We said good-bye to Archie,
who
was going back to Mudia, but would be down to stay with us in Aden in two or
three days’ time, and climbed into the Land Rover with Ahmad and Mancini in the
back and the sulky driver of our journey out at the wheel.

The drive back, though
as bumpy
as ever, seemed to go far more quickly, I suppose because we were sorry to be
leaving that part of the Protectorate.We saw our last giant ant-hill, stopped for a cigarette at the waddy,
climbed slowly up to the top of the volcanic pass and rapidly down towards
Shukra with the sea ahead of us.Our
aim
was to reach Shukra and drive along the beach to Aden before the tide came in
too far, but when we reached Shukra the driver refused to go over the sand,
though the tide appeared to be no higher than on the journey out.We stopped to shake the dust off ourselves
and get a drink of water, and while Richard and I were upstairs in the cool
room where we first met Archie, the driver decided to take down the canvas hood
of the Land Rover.We did not quite
understand what caused him to make that decision:perhaps he had felt too hot driving and wished
to get the air now that the sun was down, or perhaps he simply thought it would
make the journey pleasanter for us all.Whatever it was, he found it was not a popular move.First Mancini and Ahmad protested and then
Richard and I did, too, when we came down; and Ali, to his great annoyance, had
to replace all the steel slats and put back the hood.He was so cross that for several miles after
we started off again, he exuded bad temper.Occasionally he grunted and snorted with anger and when he did both,
Mancini and Ahmad tried to pull his leg and jolly him out of his mood.It was no use – his face remained surly and
bad-tempered like a small boy’s, and he refused to speak.Then suddenly, as we were driving along,
across the hills of sand away to our right, we saw a small ibex staring at us
with its big eyes.

“Look, Ali! An
ibex” What a meal
he would make! A pity you can’t go bang bang and shoot him dead and have him
for your dinner.”It was childish humour
but it served.A grin spread slowly
over
Ali’s face and then, unexpectedly, he burst out laughing.He laughed so much that he had to pull up and
wipe thet ears out of his eyes.But the storm had blown over.From that moment he was cheerful and amusing and
helpful.

Since Ali would not
risk the
beach we drove inland over the sand dunes, deciding to try and go as far as the
Political Officer’s house in Abiyan and ask him if we could rest there until
the tide went out.We reached there
after the usual, hard, bumpy driving, with one interruption, at about eight
o’clock.The interruption
was due to a
party of five Indians who had set off in an old Land Rover for the interior and
had broken down a few miles sort of Shukra.They appeared, all of them, to be completely ignorant of the mechanics
of an engine and were grateful out of all proportion when Richard, with the aid
of a small piece of wire, was able to keep the engine running on an
exceptionally high flow of petrol, which would consume about five times the
usual amount but would at any rate get them to Shukra, where they could get it
mended.We had the feeling that
their
ignorance might lead them to continue running it as it was adjusted, without
bothering to have it repaired, which would inevitably leave them stranded
without petrol at some isolated spot far from all help.“Indians!” said Ali, with great scorn, as he
got into the Land Rover, after they had driven off with enthusiastic shouts of
thanks.

We fell out of the car
at the
political officer’s house, very dusty, very stiff, very hungry and very
sleepy.The P.O and his wife and little
girl greeted us kindly and politely but with a wan lack of enthusiasm. We were
their fifth party of unexpected guests arriving for rest and something to eat
in the last forty-eight hours, and they had a large party of people coming out
the next day from Aden.The larder,
which had already been over-strained, could produce nothing extra.Mancini chose to eat with Ahmad and Ali.Richard and I were offered an equal share of
the family meal – our hosts’ excuse being that they were too tired to eat
anyhow – so we each sat down to half an egg, a little salad, and a portion of
Christmas pudding, backed by a drop of whisky out of the almost empty
bottle.We were very grateful, and
restrained our appetites as muchas
we
could, but we got up from the table still feeling very hungry and only hoping
that our hosts weren’t feeling equally so.

We started off again
at midnight,
plunging our way down to the beach through deep gulleys of sea water, which
splashed and soaked up through the floor boards.And then
we began the last lap and perhaps
the most beautiful one, of the whole journey: the sea rolling in gently and
breaking unexpectedly beneath our wheels as we clung to the harder sand near
its edge, myriads of phantom-like land crabs sidling colourlessly and rapidly
in grey clouds away from our path, shadowy sand dunes on our right, a calm,
starry sky overhead and on our left, poised over a margin of the sea, the
Southern Cross, leaning slightly towards us as though giving us its blessing,
and seeming to keep step with us as we drove along.

We reached the flat in Aden
in
the early hours of the morning and were greeted with barks of joy by Peter, who
came hurtling down the stairs to meet us.

Postscript on the fort at Lahmar.

Archie
stayed two days with us.On the
third
day he received a wire to tell him that the fort had been attacked by the tribe
on the north bank, that the builder and two other tribesmen had been killed and
that the fort had been pulled to bits.None of the raiders had been caught.

“What will
you do?” I asked Archie.

“Go back
and put the fear of God into them,” said Archie “and start building the fort
again.Can’t have them thinking
they can
frighten us.”

[1]With many thanks to Helen Lackner,
who kindly transcribed the full text of Kay's
narrative froom the original faded typescript,
and has also published an extract from it in The British-Yemeni
Society Journal, Vol. 24. 2016.

Shortly before I flew
down to
Aden for my Christmas leave Richard wrote and suggested that we should spend
part of it staying in a fort in the Western Aden Protectorate.He explained in his letter that whereas the
Eastern Protectorate, with Mukalla as its chief town, was a well-developed
state with quite a considerable cultural development, the Western part of the
Protectorate was relatively primitive and inhabited by a number of warring tribes- until very recently and unhealthy spot for
Europeans to visit unless they were well protected by a strong bodyguard.

“It won’t be luxury travelling”,
he wrote, “but it should be
very interesting.”

My imagination was taxed enough already
in foggy Milan to
visualise hot and sunny Aden, for which, while shivering in woollen jumpers and
a fur coat, I should have to pack the thinnest of summer frocks.I wrote back that I should love to do
anything he arranged, so long as I was with him, and thought no more about it.

When I arrived he explained
more
in detail.It was an opportunity not to
be missed, he said.Very few people
were
allowed into the Western Protectorate.We might never getanother chance
and it would certainly be worth while.He had warned me that it might be a little uncomfortable, but what he
really wanted to prepare me for was the journey there and back, which would be
very hard going.I had only been
twenty-four hours in Aden and I was in no mood to find anything too
difficult.If he had suggested a
ride in
an amphibious jeep across the Red Sea I would have accepted.Aden, with its smells and sights, the camel
cart, the brightly coloured local dress, the flanking volcanic rocks, the dhows
smelling of shark oil and the shark-infested sea, he shops in the Crescent
waiting spider-like to tempt all ship’s passengers, on shore for a few hours,
to buy mediocre goods and anything but mediocre prices, the English colony
itself, so hidebound by status and tradition, all this gave my mind plenty to
digest and left no room to deal with imaginary pictures of life in an Arab
village.

We spent Christmas Day
in
traditional style in spite of the weather, feasting off turkey and plum pudding
and going to sleep after lunch.On
Christmas evening, unable to eat, we went out and danced and drank and got home
at three in the morning.I fell
asleep
immediately, and did not wake until I heard a knock at our bedroom door.

“It’s
six-thirty.There’s Ishmael
with the
coffee.We must get up.Today’s the day we’re going to Mudia.”

Richard sat up with
a jerk,
barked out “Come in” and then fell back fast asleep again.But it was not the discreet Ishmael, but
pock-marked, coal-black face, dressed in white tropical jacketand knee-length shorts, coming in with
springy treat and his usual cheerful “Good bornin, sar”, spoken with a
Jeeves-like mixture of friendliness and tactful respect.Ishmael would not drive up in his highly
polished, new, green limousine until seven, after the rest of the staff had
begun. Instead, a frightened pantry boy had been told off to serve us.“Oh dear,” I said, knowing the pantry boy’s
habits, “that means weak coffee this morning.”

The strength of the
coffee was
very important.The highly chlorinated
salty Aden water made early-morning tea impossible, and coffee was only
drinkable if it was strong enough to mask the taste of the water.Richard drank a cup with plenty of sugar in
it.I managed one sip.We could neither of us face the plate of
green bananas.

The driver was due to
arrive for
us at eight.We had decided to make an
early start for Mudia, even if it meant sacrificing some sleep, in order to get
as much driving done in daylight as possible.We had a hurried shower and dressed quickly.Richard had been warned to put on his naval
shirt with tabs, and to wear a cap to prevent any trouble with the customs in
the Fadhli Sultan’s territory.I
dressed
in navy blue slacks and a blouse and cardigan, having been told that it was only
hot in Aden and could be quite cold where we were going.The advice was ill-taken in both cases.We were neither of us suitably dressed; Richard
had to borrow clothes and I, being unable to borrow since I was the only
European woman there, had to suffer.What to take with us was the next problem.Richard decided on a toothbrush and razor
first, and then added a change of shirt and shorts, and a warm jacket and
pullover.I put in a rather highly
coloured utility dress, one or two cardigans and a gabardine costume, a change
of underclothes and a make-up bag.By
the time we had finished our brief packing, I was perspiring heavily and began
to long for the cool air which we were to find outside.

We had more
coffee.I managed two sips this
time and
Richard two cups.We each ate a
slice of
pawpaw, with lime juice and salt and pepper.A cigarette, a final word of instruction from Richard about work in the
office while he was away, and it was already eight o’clock.Richard’s flat had a balcony running along
one side of it which is used as both dining room and sitting room.It faces a big square containing the town
football ground, and there is constant traffic of taxis and cars and jeeps and
camel carts around it.We spent
the next
two hours heralding the noise of all motor vehicles within hearing distance by
a ‘here it is’ before the Land Rover finally arrived.I tried to stifle both a desire to yawn and a
feeling of cross regret at having lost sleep unnecessarily.When it did arrive, neither of us was
ready.Richard had gone across to
the
office, I was doing my hair again, and Ishmael, who should have carried our
bags down, had gone out.

The next
half hour was spent in a dangerous search for petrol.Since December 26th was Bank
Holiday, most of the petrol stations were shut.Our driver, a wild man from the Western Protectorate, lean, brown, with
finely-chiselled features and a worried frown, d rove us impetuously up and
down streets to the period of other cars, goats, sheep, pedestrians and
ourselves.The camels, being large,
would probably have won in any encounter.We picked up an empty can with a whole in it in one place, filled it
with petrol at another, drove some distance with the petrol spurting lavishly
out of the hold, had the hole soldered up at yet another place, and at last
started off down the main road out towards the beach.All this time Richard and I had sat in
childlike bewilderment, abandoning ourselves to our fate.We knew no Arabic, the driver and his
satellite in the back knew no English.I
sat back with a sigh of relief and an affectionate smile at Richard and at that
moment the driver decided to hold and urgent discussion with the boy in the
back.Europeans may have cultivated
the
faculty of talking through the back of their heads, it seems that Arab drivers
have not.To talk one must look
at the
person to whom one is speaking.We
were
on the wrong side of the road and within a few feet of a head-on collision
before the driver responded to a touch on the arm from Richard, looked around,
saw the oncoming car, and jerked the wheel over to safety.

We turned off the tarmac
road on
to a sandy track leading to the sea, and left Aden behind us, brown and rocky
and dazzling in the heat.It had been
high tide at eight, and now a broad sweep of deceptively smooth sand stretched
for miles ahead of us.We began
our drive
towards the small town of Shukra, about seventy miles away, to the east of Aden
along the coast in the territory belonging to the sultan of Fadhli.We drove, keeping the sea on our right and
the sand dunes and desert on our left.It was not a comfortable drive.The first few miles were punctuated every few yards by invisible ridges
which caught the Land rover amidships and threw us forward with a lurch against
the windscreen.then came a patch
which
broke the monotony of the automatic bumping, and gave us a number of
surprises.We drove boldly over
a
Daytona-like stretch, though not quite at racing-car speed – we scarcely even
managed top gear for more than a hundred yards – and then suddenly one of two
things happened.Either we would
be
faced with a steep drop down a bank into the bed of a waddy, and when this
happened the driver got out, ran a hundred yards or so testing the firmness of
the sane with elastic, barefooted leaps into which he put as muchweight as possible, crushed down the side of
the bank to give us a smoother run and then drove us at full speed into and
across the waddy in a dash to reach the good firm sand on the other side; or we
would be lulled by the smoothness into believing that all the beach was firm
and suddenly find ourselves caught in a well of loose sand, with the engine
roaring and the wheels whirring, quite unable to go backwards or forwards.It was on such occasions that the camaraderie
of the desert showed itself.From
nowhere, from deserted sand dunes and a completely empty beach, a handful of
men in foutahs – the native coloured skirts – wioth rifles slung over their
shoulders and the tails of their turbans waving, would come running up,ready to lend a shoulder and shove us out again.When they had dislodged us, they clustered
around the car talking.

We left it to the driver
and he,
with a curt sentence or two, which we hoped was of thanks, drove on.Perhaps it was a general system of mutual
aid.We stopped twice while the
driver
ran to help a lorry in difficulties.But
I noticed that he rewarded himself with water for our boiling radiator, a
fair-sized tip when one considers the scarcity of it in that arid country.

Herons and
pelicans watched us roar by, from the water’s edge. Hundreds of small,
twinkling, sharp-beaked birds scattered in flight as we drove along.And as we drew nearer to Shukra the sand lost
its smoothness and became pimpled over with worm-casts like rough cast on the
side of a house.Where the worm-casts
were thickest, there we found the crabs, myriads of land-crabs clouding the
sand and sidling off rapidly as we approached, in angular disdain, like ballet
dancers minoing [or mincing? P 9) on their points.

We had planned to meet our
host,
Archie Wilson, for lunch at Shukra but by the time we got there it was well
past lunch and he had already eaten.

“Come in,
come in, do” he said, after we had been introduced, “my Somali boy, Ali, has
got lunch all ready for you.I hope
you
will forgive my having eaten.It
was
rather late and I began to think you must have changed your minds about
coming.”

He took me
first of all to wash my hands, for which I was very grateful since I was
covered with dust, and besides, had not been successful in getting the driver
to stop discreetly for me on the way.A
canvas basin, a large drum of water, soap and a towel, and a hole in the floor
dropping straight down on to the beach were what I found.I did not know it then, but the fact that the
bathroom had a roof over it was something of a luxury.When I found my way back to the sitting room
I noticed that Archie had changed out of trousers into a foutah.Richard told me afterwards that Archie had
explained he had put on trousers to be polite but that when he saw what I was
like he had not hesitated in getting out of them for the more comfortable
foutah.Whether or not he meant
that as
a compliment I do not know.

It was my
first visit to an Arab house and I was very impressed by the coolness of
it.The sitting room was a large
whitewashed room, with windows looking straight out over the beach. Arab rooms
have windows in most of the walls, with small square outlets cut above them, so
that you can vary your ventilation if there is wind, and if need be, shut all
the windows to keep out the sand, and ventilate through the small outlets.

Ali gave us
a wonderful vegetarian lunch of Heinz spaghetti, fried eggs and tomatoes and
fruit, especiallychosen for me,
and the
first proof of Archie’s excellence as a host.When we had finished, Richard and I left Archie while he made
last-minute arrangements about the next stage of our journey, and wandered out
to take some photos and look at the town.All the houses were sand-coloured and box-like, with small windows and
often crenelated roof tops.They
were
surrounded by high walls, and we could see women and children peering out
through the doors in them shy of us but wanting to see what the curious white
people looked like.Some of the
smallest
children were running about on the beach, dark eyed, black skinned and curly
haired, and with practically no clothes on.When we tried to photograph them they all ran away, except the very smallest
of all who couldn’t manage it, and fell flat on his tummy on the sand, staring
at us with an aggressive, rather cross expression when we pointed the camera at
him.Archie joined us and took us
to see
the school which is being built there.A
small, unpretentious building of four classrooms, each with one window, one
blackboard built in the wall, and one roughly built cupboard.The size of the rooms had been regulated by
the ceilings, which are made of large beans if ilb, a hard red wood, the only
wood available locally, with the intervening spaces filled in with mud and the
dried twigs of the ilb placed at right angles to the beams.Larger ceilings would require pillars to
support them and these the educational officer, who had designed the school,quite rightly refused to have, saying that
you could not have some poor child losing all its schooling by having to sit
behind a pillar and see nothing.We
shook hands with the builder and all his workmen and smiled our compliments,
since we could not speak them.

“Let’s go,”
said Archie, “we’ve got a long journey ahead of us.”

Archie is
tall and thin and aristocratic-looking.He wears a monocle and smokes a pipe and has a complete disregard for
final g’s and vowel lengths in his speech.I learnt later that he has an equal disregard for his own physical
safety.He is conservative and
traditional to the fingertips, but so intellectually honest that he is forced
to admit the right of other people to hold a different point of view from his
own.His forbears, immediate and
remote,
have all had a hand in making the British Empire what it was, and, in Archie’s
opinion, no longer is but still should be.For an adult I am ridiculously shy about new acquaintances and for quite
a few miles before reaching Shukra I had been hoping that Archie would fail to
be there.My nervous doubts were
dissipated as soon as I met him. He is the good –mannered man par excellence:
he has tact, courtesy, amusing conversation and a charming lack of that modern
failing: the probing, inquisitive, direct question.He took over the driving and we sat in front
beside him.

“Let me
know whenever you want to stop,” he said.“We are in no hurry and the going’s hard.Whenever you want to rest just say so.”

The going was hard.We turned out backs on to the sea and Shukra
and struck out inland towards a formidable group of volcanic mountains.The road until recently had been nothing but
a narrow camel track.Now, graced
with
the dignified title of road, it was wider, but that was about all one could say
for it.Its surface was still
interestingly rugged.Archie drove
splendidly, knowing just when to accelerate and lurch ahead, and when to slow
down for bumps.We had gone many
miles
before he revealed, or we guessed, that the brakes had gone.The first few miles reminded me of driving up
the foot of Etna, The road and the surrounding land was strewn with lumps of
lava of all sizes: dust, pebbles, small stones, chunks, huge boulders.Slabs of lava paved the road itself where the
sand had been blown off or worn away.After some miles I gave up making mental comparisons.Etna was a child’s plaything compared with
these extinct volcanic giants, thrown up and hardened in some mighty eruption
hundreds of thousands of years ago.It
was not a question of boulders or crags or even slopes of lava.Vast mountains had been poured there and had
presented unchanging entities of black, impenetrable rock ever since.One mass, as large as Etna itself, looked
like a gigantic Christmas pudding on which the brandy sauce had set as it
trickled down; in between the trickles huge caves had formed.Bones found in some of the caves prove that
they were once at ground level, so Archie told us.Now they are several hundred feet up.

We came
upon a waddy, green with succulent plants, and glistening with what appeared at
a distance to be moist soil.But
when we
came closer the glistening proved to be shining lava caught by the sunlight,
and there was no moisture at all.

“There’s no
water there.” Said Archie, “The succulents thrive on the little rain they get
once a year and all the digging in the world won’t yield you a drop.”It seemed ironic:such greenness and such drought.A few goats were grazing there but their
owner carried water in a large skin bottle on his camel’s back.

When we reached
the highest point in the track across the range, we stopped and got out to look
back through the gap at the sea far away in the distance.Shukra had disappeared and there was nothing
to be seen except sky, very blue, sea, white-fringed with waves, and forbidding
black barriers of mountainous rocks.

“That’s
where we go,” said
Archie, pointing ahead of us down the other side of the pass into the sandy
plain.“You’d better pull your turbans
across your faces.It’s going
to be
dusty now.”

And dusty it was.We
drove along dusty tracks into which the wheels of the Land Rover sankso deep that the ridge of dust in between
scraped the undercarriage.It gave
us
all the sensations of skidding, minus the danger, for there was nothing you
could run into except more dust.

We shut the
sidescreens and opened the windscreen at the bottom and the dust got in our
mouths.We then shut the windscreen
and
opened the sidescreens and it got in our ears and hair.Every now and again we bucked over a six-foot
ridge of solid dust, churning it between the wheels and then nose-diving
down.As we drove along I noticed
sculptured mounds of dust, man-high, and fantastically shaped, dotted all over the
desert.

“Ant-hills”,
said Archie briefly

We stopped at a giant
waddy for a
nip of whisky from our flasks.Ilb and
acacia-like trees growing shoulder-high on banks of crevassed dust, with all
their roots exposed.And then we
drove
on and on, past mud-coloured villages where stray dogs, lean and angry, came
out and barked at us; past flocks of black-faced sheep with fat tails, past
camels laden with fodder, past scampering she-goats and their young.Vultures hovered over everything, and when
the sun went down and we plunged on through whirling dust, bats fluttered
backwards and forwards in the light of the head-lamps.

We reached Mudia at
nine in the
evening.Archie’s black-turbaned tribal
guards were there to salute us.

“My fort,”
said Archie taking his pipe out of his mouth, and pulling off his white
head-cloth.“The guards are
waiting for
you to take the salute, old man” he said to Richard.Formalities over, we went in through the
doorway cut in the thick outer walls of the dar.To our right, stone stairs led up to Archie’s
room and bathroom, built over the guard-room.To our left were the kitchen with guest-room cum office, and the
wireless room, and a balcony, reached, like Archie’s room, by an outer stone
staircase of rough steps.The Dar
itself
towered in the middle and housed Archie’s A.P.O., Ahmad, Education officer for
Dathina state, and one of his assistants, a young boy of fifteen.On the remaining corner of the square walls
surrounding the Dar was the lavatory, white-washed, as I afterwards learned,
especially for my benefit, with the mud-ceiling and roughcast walls I had seen
in the school-rooms at Shukra, and with the luxury of concrete foot-slabs on
either side of the hole.

Our room
was small and square and newly whitewashed, with a mud floor, two windows in
each of the walls north and south, two niches cut, in which to stand oil lamps,
one large single bed, one map of the Western Protectorate (very inaccurate, as
I afterwards learnt from Archie). One chair and whole stacks of the Aden
Gazette.Through the windows on
the
south side we could see right across the plain to ranges of mountains, of which
one was shaped exactly like the Matterhorn.Through those in the north we were visible to anyone who cared to go by
with washing to hang yup at the other end of the balcony, or work to do in the
wireless room.

The bathroom
outside Archie’s room was open to the sky with an eight-foot wall on three
sides and the wall of Archie’s room on the fourth.It was completely visible from the turreted
windows of Ahmad’s room, but when I confessed my fears of being overlooked,
while washing stripped all over:“Ahmad’s a gentleman,” protested Archie.When I went to wash before our evening meal I found a canvas bath,
larger than the one at Shukra, a small shaving mirror over a basin and a niche
in the wall, a large drum of water, an aluminium jug with which to scoop it
out, a wooden crate on which there was Archie’s toothbrush and paste in a
chipped enamel mug, his cut-throat razor and a soap box.Towels were hung over a piece of string tied
across one corner.The wall separating
the bathroom from Archie’s room contained a communicating window which Archie
had politely shut.The door was
of
slatted wood, with large gaps between the slats.Everything indicated a bachelor establishment.

“I’m afraid
it’s very primitive,”
apologised Archie, “but I told Richard to warn you.My
wife and I had a charming house on the
other side of the village.I’ll
show it
to you tomorrow.But the scoundrel
who
owned it turned us out because we refused to pay the exorbitant rent he
demanded.Kitty went home with the
children and I moved in here.I
hope you
won’t find it too uncomfortable.”

So far the
major discomfort had been flies while washing.I had stripped to the waist in order to soap off some of the dust and
the flies settled stickily in the soap wherever my hand was not operating.

We went to
bed early that night after another excellent meal, with a very warming amount
of whisky afterwards.It was cool
enough
for us to need a blanket.We slept
well
with the oil lamp turned down low.

Dec27th.

Richard
woke up in the morning covered with bites.We suspected sandflies, as there was building going on outside, below
the window.We washed summarily
in the
open air bathroom, shook a quantity of dust out of our clothes and even more
out of our shoes and went across for breakfast.Ali’s idea of breakfast was decidedly English:fried sausages and bacon, fried egg and fried
bread, coffee, toast and Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade.After breakfast Archie lit a pipe and then
told Ahmad that he was ready for anyone wishing to see him.Archie was not expected back until the following
day, so there was only one caller instead of the usual stream.He was a lean man, about five foot seven or
eight inches in height, with an intelligent, handsome but untrustworthy-looking
face; his long, oiled, black hair was piled up in a top knot on his head with
an indigo-coloured strip of material tied around it.His chest was bare and stained almost black
with indigo.He was wearing a blue-black
skirt, the local indigo-coloured foutah, held in place by a dark leather
cartridge belt, of decidedly business-like proportions.An even more deadly-looking rifle was slung
over his shoulder.He had come to
ask a
favour of Archie:permission to
build a
fort in the middle of the souq, the local market place, which is part of his
territory.Archie knew that he wanted
to
do this, believed it to be a bad thing since it would intimidate other tribes
coming there to sell, and would give the man too much life-and-death
power.He had already decided to
refuse
him.The parley was carried with
many
smiles and apparent friendliness, with Ahmad assisting as interpreter where
necessary.Archie’s Arabic
is fluent but
the various dialects sometimes make it difficult for him.

Archie
allowed the tribal leader to have his say and then told him that not only would
he not give him the permission that if ever he found him attempting to build
the fort against his orders – the sentence was finished with a throat-slitting
gesture of finger drawn across throat, a threat which sent the Arab tribesmen
into fits of genuine laughter.We
then
all shook hands and the visitor left, smiling happily and broadly.I wondered what was in his mind?Defiance when Archie was away on leave?
Perhaps.

“Come along
with me to the souq,” said Archie, Jumping up, “you can get an idea of the size
of the local market and see where this damned scoundrel hopes to build.”

There was no doubt that
Archie is
well-liked and trusted in Mudia.As we
drove along the dusty tracks through the village, past the big ilb beneath
which the carpenters work, across the large square in front of the school, past
the place where the local lord of the manor, Aden-educated, was building a
second house for additional relatives, past the magnificent garden where he was
sinking a well in order to begin a new venture, the cultivation of oranges and
lemons – wherever we went men and children rushed out to greet us with very
genuine smiles of good-will on their faces.

The souk
was about half an hour’s drive away, out in the middle of the valley.There were no buildings of any kind.Nothing but men and cattle and goods set down
in the middle of the dusty desert, in the full glare of the sun.The brilliant green millet growing in the
distance, the low-growing succulent scrub, the dark shadows on the mountains
gave a degree of coolness, but the souk itself was hot and smelly, and very,
very, dusty.

We hadn’t
struck a very good day.Cattle,
spices,
cereals, a quantity of very rough basket work, some very cheap, gaudy
jewellery, cheap cotton cloth, and that was about all.The size of the market varies greatly since
most of those who go to it are tribesmen from tribes many miles away who may
have had to walk for two days or more to reach it, and who consequently will
probably not go every week.We wandered
around, getting progressively stained with indigo from the many hand-shakes
with tribesmen who knew Archie.The
would-be fort builder was there too.I
wondered how he had reached the souk so quickly.Perhaps camels are as fast as jeeps over the
bumpy desert tracks.Whenever I
tried to
take a photo of anything –camels with their knees tied together, handsome
little goats-herds with kids I their arms, the spice vendor with his flat
baskets of ginger and rice, groups of tribesmen with enviably luxuriant crops
of hair – as soon as I opened the camera crowds surged round me and completely
hid what I was trying to take.Whenever
that happened Ahmad plunged into the crowd, arms waving, and scattered them,
and I took the photo hastily without real aim before the next crowd had time to
gather.

One or two baskets looked
attractive enough to buy, though the workmanship was rough and the cracks were
thick with dust.They were not unlike
Sardinian basket ware, though they were much coarser and their patterns,
instead of being picked out in bright reds and greens and oranges, were mostly
in blue and purple.

I had hoped
to find some silver jewellery, but there was none.Ever since the Jews left the country two
years ago there has been practically none available, as they were the principal
silversmiths.

“Let’s go
back via the school, Ahmad,” said Archie “Commander and Mrs Clay can make a tour
of inspection and then write rude comments in the visitors’ book.”

Ahmad looked a little
doubtful.Perhaps he was afraid that we
really might disfigure his book with unkind comments.I tried to explain that I was something of a
schoolmistress too and that we only came to admire, not to criticize, but he
did not seem reassured.

The school was on the
side of the
square opposite to the dar and was an impressive building resembling the one at
Shukra, but with slightly bigger rooms and a beautiful arched alcove running
along the entrance side of it, like one side of a cloister.There
were small Arab boys of all ages from
three or four to eleven or twelve, grouped in four classes of about twenty to
thirty boys in each.One class was
studying the Koran, another Arab history, another arithmetic, and the lowest
form was learning how to write.We
were
introduced to the teachers in turn.They
were all pupil teachers – one as old as sixteen, the others younger.The teacher in the history class and the
teacher in the Divinity class were self-possessed and went onconfidently teaching in front of us.The Arithmetic teacher called out a small
sturdy boy and got him to recite a poem in Arabic.Though he spoke a different language, the
small boy might have been any bright boy of any class anywhere.His voice took on the false shrill note and
overemphatic, declamatory tone of all children forced to show off as exhibits.

The small
creatures learning to write their alphabet were lovely to see:there were nearly forty of them squatting on
the floor at tiny low desks, tongues out, concentrating hard.When we came in they stopped writing and
stared at us withenormous innocent
eyes.Many of them were very beautiful
and most of
them looked extremely well-nourished.Their teacher, aged twelve, was terror-struck by our intrusion and quite
unable to go on.He stammered a
word or
two and we left the room quickly, feeling sorry for him.The room at the end was for handicrafts and
contained a number of imaginative clay models and paintings and paper
cut-outs.The standard was high,
especially in the modelling.There
was
one terrifying portrait-head of a very evil-looking man, and a fine recumbent
cat, with an exaggeratedly feline expression on its face, of smug gloating.

We thanked Ahmad and
wrote
politely in the visitors’ book and then left.As we stepped outside into the dazzling sunlight we were met by a
blue-black figure: the would-be fort builder, back from the Souk.His smiling persistence won my admiration and
I asked Richard to photograph me shaking hands with him.The tribesman was delighted and clasped my
hand warmly, leaving a generous layer of indigo behind.

Outside the
Dar there was a large crowd of men waiting to see ‘Archie.He had to select half a dozen men as new
recruits for the Tribal guards.The
Tribal Guards bear the same relationship to the Government Guards as the County
Police do to Scotland Yard.They
are
recruited locally from the various tribes, a handful from each to prevent
ill-feeling.They deal with all
the
smaller problems of law and order, and act as a display of force wherever it is
needed.For anything really serious
the
Government Guards, with longer years of service, more careful training and better
equipment, are called in. Six men were needed.Some seventy had turned up, having heard in some mysterious way of the
vacancies which only been announced two days before.Many of them had made a two-day journey on
the off-chance of being chosen.“Gives
them something to do,” said Archie, “they have to make the time pass somehow.”

They squatted in the
dust in the
glaring sunlight, blobs of vivid colour.Some were dressed in the conventional indigo foutah, and their
stiffened, brightly-polished, indigo head-band reflected the sun like a
mirror.Others were dressed in coloured
foutahs, in shades ranging through all the colours of the spectrum.They seemed to have no sensitivity about the
matching of colours – a special clash of a variety of reds was one of the favourites
toilettes.A Government Guard gave
an
order and they immediately ranged themselves in a semi-circle, standing
shoulder to shoulder and giggling like a class of schoolgirls.Archie walked stiffly out, dressed in long
white drill trousers and white shirt, and white Arab headdress.He examined each man’s papers and consulted
with Ahmad.No paper testified to
less
than good.

“Means
nothing at all,” said Archie, “the previous employer’s way of saying that the
man’s a scoundrel.Can’t
trust anybody with
less than excellent.”Those
without
papers are rejected instantly and sent packing, not without some protestation. Finally
a short list of twenty is decided on and the lucky twenty are led inside the
fort to be questioned more closely.Being a woman I was not allowed to attend the proceedings, but I managed
to spy on them secretly through the bars of a window in Archie’s sitting
room.It was amusing to see the
behaviour of the rejected applicants.They flung arms round each others’ necks, sparred, tickled each other in
the ribs, and indulged generally in schoolboyish horseplay, all with a wide
grin of apparent happiness on their faces, as though they were relieved at
being unsuccessful.A few walked
off
hand in hand, smiling affectionately at one another.Across the dusty desert tracks, late arrivals
could be seen straggling up.When
they
heard the news from those who had not been selected, they turned round with
them and philosophically went away again.

Archie came
up to the sitting room a quarter of an hour later.Six reliable men from three different tribes
had been chosen.The best candidate
of
all had, alas, to be rejected, as he was the son of a slave.He3 was a magnificent young man, tall,
strong, dignified, obviously intelligent and responsible.But because he was the son of a slave he
would never be able to command respect in the others.He went away in tears.

“We’ve
earned our drinks this morning.What’s
yours?” enquired Archie.

Archie had
arranged a tea party for me that afternoon with the ladies in the household of
the wealthy experimenter in orange-and-lemon-cultivation.It was strictly a purdah party.The two ladies from the Danish mission had
also been invited, as interpreters for me.I was driven there at half past four in the Land Rover and led in by a
toothless female servant and a bevy of small children.The ground floors of Arab houses have a
completely unfinished appearance.The
rough stone walls, the mud floors, the complete lack of any furnishings, and
often of any systematic cleaning, reminds me of English basement cellars.

The ladies
were waiting to greet me on the first floor at the top of some stone
stairs.I was introduced first to
Ali’s
sister.She was about thirty-five,
and
had an authoritative air as though she governed the household.She was pretty and plump and lively, with
black, well-oiled hair, covered by a loose, hand-woven net in black and red, in
texture not unlike the fawn and blue dishcloths we use in England for washing
up.Her face was without make-up,
but
there was delicate tattooing on her forehead and between her eyebrows.Her dress, by Western standards, was
completely shapeless – a broad strip of bright blue satin, sewn down the sides,
with holes for the neck and arms.It
was
gathered in at the waist by a heavy silver belt from which dangled the keys of
the household in a large bunch.She
wore
beautiful silver ear-rings, like small bird-cages, and her feet were, of
course, bare.In shaking hands,
or
rather in having my hand stroked and patted by her, I felt I was being
introduced to the Middle Ages.I
was
greeted, and patted too, by Ali’s wife, younger, with sad, cow like eyes and a
very large, attractive mouth.She
was
shortly expecting a baby and her face had a patient beautiful expression.They took me into their sitting room, which
was also Ali’s sister’s bedroom – and there, perhaps as a concession to me as a
European, or perhaps as a result of Ali’s Aden upbringing, I was given a wicker
chair to sit in.There were three
chairs
and two beds in the room and that was all.The walls were bare, the floors were bare, there were no tables.The ladies from the Danish mission sat in the
other two chairs.All the rest of
the
party of women and children who had followed us in, clustered round, standing
or sitting on the floor, or squatting on the beds.Since I speak no Arabic, all the conversation
had to be carried out through Miss Nielsen, and I tried to convey my happiness
and being with them by smiling broadly.We drank tea, heavily sweetened, ate chocolate cake made by Ali’s sister
according to a recipe supplied by Miss Nielsen, discussed and praised the
children, of whom there were several.The
eldest little boy, Ali’s sister’s only child, had been ill – a tubercular germ
was suspected.Now he was better
but was
still very pale and heavy-eyed and fractious.Miss Nielsen told me that he was spoilt on account of his illness.Only the sister and little boy ate with us.
Miss Nielsen explained that it would not be considered polite for the others to
do so.They slipped away one by
one and
then quietly came back again. I hoped that they were slipping off for a cup of
tea in secret.They asked questions
about where I came from, whether I was married, how many children I had.The idea of my working was too difficult to
explain to them and I was obliged to let them consider me a lady of
leisure.Every now and again I felt
a
soft hand on my face, on my knee, stroking my back, feeling my arm.It was one of the children creeping up to see
if I was real or perhaps to feel the texture of my skin and clothes.The children were lovely to look at, with
very large eyes, beautiful dark olive skins and very well-formed bodies.The little girls’ hair was thickly oiled and
twisted into innumerable cork-screw curls starting right from the tops of their
heads, an elaborate coiffeur which must have taken a lot of time to prepare.

“They have
plenty of time to spare” said Miss Nielsen, and added that they always washed
their hair once a fortnight, which surprised me since the oil gave it a dirty
look of longer standing.The little
girls had a lively air of freedom about them which those who had reached
puberty seemed to lose.The seclusion
of
purdah must be very hard to bear at first, after having been allowed to wander
about freely in the outside world.

After tea we talked
clothes, in
true female fashion.The latest way of
wearing the fishnet bead veil was discussed and the lopped-up style on the top
of the head – a very becoming style – was declared old-fashioned.It was time to go.I was distressed by the language difficulty
and my smile became a positive Cheshire-cat grin in an effort to convey my
gratitude.I was taken as far as
the
threshold by Ali’s sister, clasping me tightly round the waist.We shook hands affectionately and she
disappeared abruptly, afraid, I imagined, of being seen from the road outside.

I asked Miss
Nielsen more about their lives. “What do they do all day?” I asked.“How do they manage to make the time pass, with
no reading, no going out, none of the social round of Western women?” “Oh they
have plenty to do” said Miss Nielsen a little severely, “they cook and wash
clothes, make their dresses, gossip, dance among themselves.Some of the younger ones are even beginning
to learn to read and write now.”

“Tell me,” I added “what do
they wear under their dresses?
What kind of corsets and brassieres do they have, and petticoats and so on?”

“Nothing at all, absolutely nothing at
all,” said Miss
Nielsen, “though I have persuaded some of the more enlightened ones to wear
knickers.”

Dec 28th.

Ali called
us at 6.30 with some tea.We jumped
out
of bed and looked out of the window.The
air was so clear that the mountains many miles away seemed just outside the
window.The sun crept slowly up
behind
them and its first rays spread out and coloured the jagged, volcanic outlines
first purple, then red, then pink, and finally golden.Once the golden rays had touched them, the
sky caught my attention by contrast and seemed startlingly blue.Black mountains, golden-fringed blue sky,
emerald green millet and mud-coloured villages.The clarity of the colours of the early morning was unforgettable and
soon passed when the heat began to shimmer.I remembered what somebody had said to me before I left Milan:

“Aden’s
a dull place, abysmally
dull – but I’d go there again just for the colours.There’s nothing to beat ‘em.”

We sat down to breakfast at
eight
and Archie insisted on my breaking my long-established habit of taking nothing
but a cup of coffee.

“Don’t know
what time we shall be
back,” he said “probably not till late afternoon.We’re
only taking fruit and a few sweets with
us.You’ll be starving by
then if you
don’t eat now.” I ate a fried egg and tinned tomato and a piece of toast, and
started off feeling rather over-heated.There were four of us in the Land Rover: Archie, who was driving,
Richard and I in front with him, and Ahmad Ali in the back.We were followed by a truck with an escort of
Tribal Guards.I had grown accustomed
by
now to the bucking, rocking, lunging motion over the road and scarcely noticed
it, having learnt to sway and lurch and cling on to the rail at the right
moments.The dust was less easy
to
accept, and Imuffled my headcloth
round
my mouth and nose, and breathed hotly into it.It brought back the day when the children were very small and I went
resolutely about the business of looking after them with a white cotton mask
tied over my face, whenever I had a cold.Now the discomfort was less because my nose wasn’t in constant need of
blowing, though it tickled a great deal.

Archie
explained to us that funds had been allocated to him for road-building, and
that he had been trying to make up the surface of the road from Mudia to
Lahmar, the place we were to visit and where he was hoping to build a
fort.He had had difficulty in getting
the work on the road done, and we went over several stretches which seemed to
have been completely neglected. “Can’t get ‘em to do the bits in between the villages,”
he protested, “afraid they’ll be shot as soon as they get out into the
open.Can’t really blame the
poor devils.Road’s no use
to them.Camel tracks all they want.”

The first stop was at
a fort
about ten miles beyond Mudia occupied by Government guards.It
was very clean and cool, and stood just
outside the village, together with the new school, a neat, small, white-washed
building, recently built, and with handsome carved wooden shutters in the
windows.The guards had prepared
tea for
us, a particular brand of thick powdered tea with plenty of milk and sugar
already added, which was to become more than familiar to me as the day went
on.It was poured boiling hot out
of a
kettle into oriental cups without handles.

The courtyard in the
centre of
the fort contained a few bushes on a raised mound and looked refreshingly green
and cool.Richard tried to photograph
Archie and me sitting at the top of the steps outside the guard room, but the
result when developed later was not very brilliant.The wall was too white and the sun too bright
so that sky and wall merged into each other.The top half of me in white blouse and white turban was invisible and so
was the bottom half of Archie in white trousers – a curious photo of two
interestingly mutilated individuals.The
shrubs, which we had hoped would add beauty to the photo, covered the whole
foreground with a black blob.The
other
shots of the same scene were equally unsuccessful.Shot no 2 showed Archie on his way towards
the steps to join me.Here it was
not
the sunlight but the bushes which truncated him, and his pipe showed
disproportionately prominent.Shot
no 3
was a fine snap of the bottom of a Tribal guard bending over a large drum of
water placed beside the bushes.As
we
were not yet aware of the shortcomings of our efforts at photography, we used
up two rolls, twenty-four photos, during the day.It was not till later we realised that
Arabian sunlight needs special treatment.

Ahmad Ali had arranged
for the
builder of the Archie’s new fort to join us here and we sat round in the guard
room chatting and waiting for him to arrive.The guard room led to a sun roof, and every few minutes Archie or
Richard or Ali or one of the Guards went out on to the roof or climbed up a
ladder to the turret above, to scan the horizon and see if the builder was in
sight.I so often feel disappointed
when
I arrive at a place and find that it is unlike what I had imagined/here in the fort my heart thumped with excitement
at finding fantasy becoming reality:Bluebeard and sister Anna with the builder in the place of
Bluebeard.We all shaded our eyes
and
looked in vain.The builder was
nowhere
to be seen, neither with the naked eye nor through Richard’s binoculars.

Archie decided to go
on ahead and
leave Ahmad to bring the builder in the truck.The land Rover had to go more slowly and, with any luck, the truck would
catch us up.As we walked out to
get
into the Land Rover, we met a young man in khaki shirt and shorts,
white-skinned, fair-haired, who was chatting in fluent Arabic with the guards.
Archie explained that he was Mancini, a young National-service man, of Italian
origin, but London born and bred, an East Ender with a genuine cockney
accent.He had been evacuated during
the
war and had received practically no schooling, had been drafted out to Aden,
given the job of overhauling wireless sets for the political officers in the
Protectorate, and in eight months had picked up more colloquial Arabic than
most people can achieve in years. He had taken to the Arab way of life
completely, wandering around on his own, refusing his canned rations, and
preferring to sleep and eat and talk with the Arabs.He had applied to be allowed to transfer to
the Colonial service and remain out there.

He seemed a perfect
example in
support of the theory which I hold, that frequently people are born in the
wrong country and have a deeper natural affinity with some other country.The lucky few in the course of their life
find the country which is their spiritual home.Perhaps Mancini was one of them

Once more we ploughed
our way hotly
and bumpily over furrowed sand and dust and solid lava.Once
more we jolted our backs against the
seat and our foreheads against the windscreen.The heat was increasing, and I rolled up my navy serge slacks to my
knees in an effort to keecool.It was little use.Where the thick roll clung around my knees
and the sweat began to drip and I felt the seat of my trousers sticking hotly
to the canvas-covered cushion.Incidentally,
the canvas-covered cushion was an added thorn in my heat-pricked flesh. Every time the Land Rover jolted, the seat
slipped forward and unless I immediately slid it back I had to choose between
sitting on the edge of the cushion with my knees knocking the dashboard, or
letting the cushion slip from underneath me and sitting on hard metal.Archie entertained us by pointing out flora
and fauna.Dala roses growing
thick-fleshed and bright pink on trees out of the barren mountain face, a
solitary aloe tree, an occasional snake slithering out of our way, the
inevitable kite hovering overhead, loaded camels and their drivers, at a
standstill by the roadside, saluting us with dignity as we drove by.We pulled up at a short distance from the
fort to which we were heading, to wait for the truck to catch up with us.

“Damn that fellah,”
said Archie.
“No idea of time.Should have been at
the Dar waiting for us.Lost half
the
day already.” And turning to me, with his considerable charm he added: “Hope you
don’t mind waiting, Kay, Can’t do without the fellah.Must show him what he’s got to do.”

I protested I did not
mind at all
and got out of the jeep to ease my legs and try and dry off the seat of my
trousers.We shaded our eyes with our
hands and looked back along the road.

“Any signs?” asked
Archie, busy
with his pipe.

“No, nothing yet,”
we replied.

Richard and I lit cigarettes
and
we all smoked in silence.There was no
noise except for the sizzling of the engine, as it began to cool down, and an
occasional bark from a dog in the distance.Heat shimmered over everything, blurring sand and scrub, and making even
the immovable mountains sway as we gazed.One of two wisps of white cotton cloud floated above the biggest
ridge.The rest of the sky was unbroken,
brilliant blue, so dazzling that my eyes watered behind dark glasses when I
looked up.

Richard and Archie climbed
up a
dust mound to get a clearer view. “I think I can see something right over
there”, said Richard.“Where?” queried
Archie doubtfully.“Can’t
see a thing
myself.” “Perhaps I’m wrong” said Richard good-temperedly.They lapsed into silence and I got back into
the car, hoping that it might be cooler in the shade of the canvas roof.

“There”,
said Richard
suddenly,“over there! I can see
something moving.”

“Imagination,
old man” said
Archie cryptically, and disbelievingly.I strained my eyes to see but saw nothing except quivering heat and
dust.None of us spoke for a few
moments.“It is moving,”
Richard called
out, “look over there.Can’t
you see the
dust?”

And now we all saw.Far away, back in the direction of the fort
which we had left an hour earlier, a tall spout of dust could be seen moving
along.

“Dust devil,”
said Archie.

But this time Richard
was not to
be dissuaded.“I don’t think it is,”
he
said.“It’s flatter
and doesn’t seem to
be whirling.Looks to me like the
kind
of dust a truck would stir up behind it.” We shaded our eyes and watched the
faint, smoke-like wisp in the distance.“By Jove, I believe you’re right,” said Archie with relief, “It’s
moving
this way.”A quarter of an
hour later
the truck drew up;.Ahmad got out
smiling good-temperedly.“He
was late”
was all he said.

We looked at the builder
in the
seat beside the driver – he was a sallow, sombre-faced man with an
indigo-coloured turban, a white shirt, a purple coloured foutah, and a tick,
grey, machine-made, Western type pullover – a cartridge belt and gambia and
rifle were worn over the top of it.In
spite of the heat he looked drawn and pale and almost cold, as if he were
shivering.

“Come along,”
said Archie, “we’re
late.As we drove along towards the fort
Archie told us what his aim was.He
pointed out to us the barrenness of the land round.

“Want to get them
to grow millet
here too,” he said.But millet could
only be grown if peaceful relations existed between the tribes.The Jaadini tribe on the south back of the
Waddy Lahmar was at present outside the boundary of Dathina state, but Archie
hoped eventually to persuade it to take advantage of an advice and protection
treaty. The first step had been taken in the building of the road through the
territory.Where there had previously
been a camel track there now ran what I was beginning to nickname in my own
mind a Protectorate road:the usual
alternating sand and boulder-sized stone surface.Hitherto the tribal leader had levied a toll
on all strangers from outside who used the camel route.Archie hoped during our visit to persuade him
to accept a sum in shillings, the equivalent of what he would normally receive
in a year from the road.

“Anxious to keep
the prestige
that levying the tax gives him.Doesn’t
need the money,” said Archie, “fabulously rich without.But we’ll never get peaceful millet-growing
conditions unless the road is free to everybody.”The fort, when built, would give protection,
prevent intimidation; and check any abuse of authority about access to the
waddy.

We reached our destination
at
midday, after driving crazily across the dusty plain, trying to keep up with
the truck.With its higher undercarriage
and longer wheel base, it could plunge along the deeply-furrowed track far more
rapidly that the Land Rover, and we arrived five minutes after it to find Ahmad
and the builder waiting with the tribal guards and the workmen to greet
us.They all saluted us and shook
hands,
bowing slightly as they did so.Their
handshakes were more vehement than any I had previously experienced, and each
time I had difficulty in keeping my arm from swinging violently at right angles
to me. Handshakes over, we climbed up the small hill on which the fort was to be
built.It was a perfectly selected
site,
a small eminence overlooking the plain in all directions, commanding the road,
the waddy and the Rabizi tribal land on the north side of the waddy as well as
the Jaadini land itself.The tribal
guards had erected a tent encampment on the summit, over the foundations of the
fort.Three feet or so of square
walls
were already standing.Ahmad told
Archie
that the tribal guard wished to offer us lunch.It was an unexpected and very generous offer and Archie, knowingwhat it would cost the guards wished he had
been able to prevent it by arriving much earlier.Archie and Richard were invited inside the
tent.Out hosts’ neglect of
the ‘ladies
first’ principle was entirely understandable.Their own women folk do not appear in public at all, or if they do, they
are heavily veiled.I was, besides,
a
rare specimen in those parts: the first white woman to be seen there ever, as
far as Archie knew.

I had to stoop down
to get into
the tent: it was a low awning stretched over the three foot, unmortared, stone
wall of the fort.I took off my sandals
before stepping in, and walked barefoot across the matting to the other
side.As I did so a whole carpet
of
flies rose from the matting, and buzzed around me.The four walls were lined with cotton-covered
sides and leather-covered cushions.I
sat down in one corner on the cushions in the required fashion, with my legs
crossed and the soles of my feet pointing downwards.Archie and Richard sat on my right along the
same side, with Richard in the central place of honour.Cups of tea were poured out as an aperitif
for us from the customary kettle(government issue, I wondered?) and as usual it was strong, boiling hot
and heavily laced with milk and sugar.For the flies it was a huge treat, and they poised greedily in a black
ring round the rim of my cup.A
particularly polite Government guard, one of the bodyguard, brought over in the
truck, sat and fanned it energetically for me whenever my fingers were not on
the cup, but the flies sat unmoved;the
sticky tea was too tempting.I gulped
the mixture down quickly, scalding my throat, in the way one takes medicine,
just to have done with it.But when
I
was not looking, the mixture was supplied as before, and I was faced with a
second cupful.I slipped it across
surreptitiously to Richard, a copious tea drinker, whose cup was empty and
substituted it for mine.It was
a ruse
which failed. His empty cup in front of me was then filled up, and I was back
to where I started from – a cup of hot, thick, stewed tea.There was nothing for it but to leave it.

The light in the tent
was dim,
and shot with brilliant patches of sunlight, through the cracks and the
opening.The meal was brought in – first
the huge, flat, griddle cakes, chepattis, usually made of local wholemeal flour
and very good to eat, but now made of white government flour in our honour and
tasting rather insipid.They are
like
huge pancakes, and the guard picked them up one by one carelessly in his
fingers and slapped them down on the rectangular mats that had been placed in
front of us.Then three bowls were
brought in steaming, one large and two small.The large one contained boiled goat piled high of every conceivable
cut.Both Archie and Richard were
served
first, to everything, and each time Archie ostentatiously handed whatever he
had been given across to me.

“Teach ‘em
how to behave to the
ladies,” he said.A carefully tied
bundle of ropey intestines was placed in front of Richard, as the chief
delicacy for the chief guest.I
dared
him a look to imitate Archie and pass them on to me! I selected as small a
portion with as little meat on it as I could find.To explain that I am a vegetarian would have
been impossible even through the excellent interpretership of Ahmad Ali.The two small bowls contained a thick sauce
with odds and ends in it, rather like the tomato meat sauce the Italians add to
their spaghetti: it had a vague curry flavour and was very good.I dipped my bread in it and made a reasonable
show of eating and toyed with the meat.I found it difficult to tear it off the bone with my right hand
only.Arab etiquette requires one
not to
touch one’s food with one’s left hand.The attentive government guard on my left noticed my scanty portion, whipped
out his knife, and cut off huge slices of goat to place in front of me.When no one was looking I managed to slip
some of them to Richard, and the rest I put back into the bowl at a convenient
moment, when the guard was not looking.While the meal was being eaten we did not talk.A tribal guard stood in front of us, waving a
towel at the flies and occasionally, with misplaced enthusiasm, flicking it in
our faces, at which we all laughed, he the loudest of all.After the meal, coffee with ginger was served
for those who liked it and tea for the rest.I chose the coffee and liked it.It tasted very little of coffee and rather strongly of ginger.

More tea was brought
in for those
who had not had enough, and then Archie was asked if he would see the tribal
leader with his right-hand man. “Bring ’emin,” said Archie.I had been told
that the tribe was a very wealthy one and that its leader was one of the
richest men for miles around.I
had
expected magnificence.What I saw
was a
wizened-looking tiny old man, black all over, dressed in the briefest of indigo
foutahs, and with his greasy black hair tied back with string.To European eyes he looked like a
beggar.In age he might have been
anything from seventy to a good one hundred and fifty.His followers claimed that he was, in fact,
well over a hundred.It was not
until he
squatted down and accepted the offer of a smoke, that I noticed that he was
completely blind.Smoking in those
parts
is communal, from a kind of hookah which is handed round. You apply the pipe to a hold in the side of
the bowl and inhale.The head of
the
Jaadini fumbled for the hole and had to have his hand guided to it.

Archie’s introductory
speech was
persuasive propaganda.He looked
forward, he said, to an era of peace and prosperity for the tribe.They had seen that peaceful conditions had
brought improvements in the Dathina area (he waved his hand expressively in the
direction of Mudia); whole fields of healthy millet had sprung up where
previously no one had dared to plough and sow.Now, with the fine road through their own territory, and the protection
they would get from the fort, they, too, could enjoy prosperity on ascale they had never reached before.Moreover, when Major X came back from his
leave, the British agent for the W.A.P., then he could promise them unlimited
protection and advice for the asking.Archie’s few tactful, restrained and admirably chosen words were
translated rapidly by Ahmad, whose face on such occasions became mask-like and
registered nothing.When one considered
the independence and initiative characteristic of him normal, his anonymity as
interpreter was a master-piece of self-withdrawal, though a flicker, now and
again, suggested a certain pruning and vetting of his material.

“Tell him, too”
added Archie,
“that Major X is coming back in a week and that he will never allow him to levy
a toll on the road – and that’s all got to stop.” When Ahmad had finished, it
was the old man’s turn.He spoke in a
plaintive monotone, eyes gazing into nothingness, and his speech lasted a long
time.I could not understand what
he
said, but I watched the steadiness of his expression and the authoritative air
of his small body.And as I watched,
he
ceased to look like a beggar and became a leader, a man used to making
decisions, of life and of death, a man who must have seen all sides of life and
witnessed much violence – someone whose position had been achieved and
maintained by a subtle combination of craft and ruthlessness and force.When he had finished, there was a pause, and
the hookah was handed to him by a tribal guard who, this time, guided the stem
of the pipe for him to the hole.

“What’s
he say?” asked Archie,
who had understood some, but not all, of the old man’s speech.“He says, in effect”, replied Ahmad, with
unexpected brevity, “that his business is with you and not with Major X, and
that he wishes to continue the toll.” “The devil he does,” said Archie explosively.
“Tell him he damn well can’t, and that I am only acting for Major X, and that
this road has damn well got to be free for everybody.”

A tactful translation
of these
words by Ahmad was a signal for a general discussion.The
old man’s aides-de-camp added their bit,
the shivering builder in his grey pullover had something to say too, and now
even Ahmad needed a tribal guard as interpreter, as several dialects were
involved.The old man’s flesh
quivered
and flapped slightly in its pouchy folds as he talked.His chief aide-de-camp, whose hair was so
long and piled in such convolutions on his head that he looked like some
astonishing Pantomime dame gone astray, gave coy, sideling glances at everybody
and spoke shyly at the old man, instead of generally to the assembly.By this time it was nearly three o’clock and
we had been sitting there for some two and a half hours.My legs were numb and I had been unable to be
alone for a single moment since breakfast.

“We’ll leave
them to talk this over,”
said Archie, jumping up. “You stay, Ahmad, and see what happens.We’ll go down and see the water and stretch
our legs a bit.Come along, you
two,” he
said to Richard and me.I felt immensely
grateful, and interpreted this as another example of Archie’s tact.

The only way to the
waddy was by
a steep rock face sloping abruptly down.To the guards, both government and tribal, it was nothing.They walked down, barefoot, as though they
were walking downstairs.To me,
in my
rather loose sandals, it was a problem.I tried to pick my way as hastily as I could, to avoid holding up the
party, but we had not got very far down before I found myself poised with one
foothold of rock, one foot swinging in space, one hand clutching at a root for
support and a big drop below me.One
of
the government guards, small, wiry, with a strong but expressionless face, gave
me his hand and showed me the way down.A trio of tribal guards walked slowly down just below me to catch me as
I fell – or so I hoped.

The water flowed wonderfully
cool
and clear in the river bed.It was
dappled in places with shoals of very tiny fish, minnow-sized, basking in the
sun just below the surface.“Cause
of
all the trouble in these parts,” said Archie, “source of all the scraps and
fighting.”It was a series
of
intermittent pools separated by a gravel bank, the first water I had seen since
I left the shore at Shukra, six foot of water flowing quietly through dry and
dusty desert, the only source of water for miles around, the most previous of
all substances: the key to life for everyone there.How understandable the tribal battles became,
if you considered the struggle they had for this basic element of life.

“If you care to
walk on,” said
the ever-tactful Archie, “we’ll wait here for you.” I surveyed the rocks ahead
of me and saw one which looked large enough to hide me from view, but as I made
towards it, two stout tribal guards detached themselves from the rest,
faithfully determined to stand bodyguard. I turned and
gave Archie a beseeching look, he
barked a word or two of command and I went on alone.When I returned I found, instead of the
peaceful group I had left, a battle raging –not, as I was afraid, battle
against the Rabizi tribe from the opposite shore, but against a thin,
colourless snake, three or four feet long.; he had been found nestling in the
rocks, coiled up near the water’s edge, and was now being despatched with
well-aimed stones.The change on
the
faces of the steady-looking guards was curious: they had become boys at play,
and were shouting with excitement.The
snake, once dead, was held dangling at arm’s length by one of the guards, and
Richard took a photo of him standing stiffly and proudly upright.

“Let’s get
back and see what’s
happened,” said Archie.Normally a
downward path over steeply-sloping, uneven ground is more difficult to
negotiate than an upward climb – but when I looked up to where the fort was, I
doubted if I would ever get there.The
rocky surface had footholds, plenty of them, but like the finest blackberries,
they were always just out of reach.I
started off behind Archie, determined somehow to achieve the impossible, and
within two minutes had got into a position from which I could neither step
forward, nor upward, nor backward without, as I imagined, plunging to my death
down below.I have no doubt that
it was
not really so critical:my fear
of
slopes both up and down was tricking me into exaggerating the situation.But I was very relieved when the guard, who
had brought me down, jumped agilely to my side, took my hand and, in quicker
time than I would have believed possible, almost literally hauled me up to the
top.He leapt and sprang and heaved
and
never put a foot wrong.He somehow
arranged for there always to be exactly the right foothold, at exactly the
right distance for me. Any apprehension I might have felt was quelled by the
firm hold of his hand which betokened enough strength in his arm to check me if
I fell.The others came up more
slowly
and probably with greater dignity.I
stood at the top waiting for them, knees sagging, breath coming in short gasps,
sweat pouring off me, dizzy in the head, yet with a great sense of pride in my
fondly-imagined mountain goat propensities.

When we got back to
the fort the
meeting had just broken up. “Well?” queried Archie, as Ahmad walked up to
him.“They have agreed,” replied Ahmad.

We went back into the
fly-ridden
tent for more tea and the final ceremony of financial compensation: a silver
token of mutual good will.Archie had
brought a small bag of silver shillings to be divided up proportionately among
the head of the tribe, his right-hand man and the builder.While the silver was slowly being counted and
re-counted by Ahmad and one of the guards, we drank tea and ginger coffee and
cooled ourselves in the breeze blowing through the tent.I watched the blind old man smoking his
hookah.His face betrayed nothing,
neither pleasure nor regret, and he appeared not to hear the clink of
coins.Then the money had been divided
into four neat piles it was handed surreptitiously to each man in turn, the
rest of the audience putting on an admirable act of indifference and ignorance
as to what was going on.This ceremony
over, Archie prepared himself to make a closing speech, but just before he
began the old tribal leader leaned forward and spoke to Ahmad, whereupon Ahmad
got up and went over to him.A whispered
conversation was held, and, to my surprise, I saw the money being returned to
Ahmad.

“What’s
happening?” I asked
Ahmad, “does he feel it isn’t enough?” “No,” replied Ahmad “he has asked me to
keep the money for him.He is afraid his
friends will rob him of it.”A
few brief
words of goodwill and encouragement from Archie and the meeting was over. We
shook hands all round and went out into the hot sun once more.

The drive back was without
incident.The sun set very beautifully
over the Arabian Matterhorn which we could see ahead of us as we lurched across
the plain.At a village two miles
or so
from Mudia we stopped to call on a locust-man.

“He’s a
lonely chap,” said
Archie, “name of Smith.Sits around here
waiting for news of locusts.When
they
come he dashes off in his Land Rover, wipes them out and comes back here again.
Rather a blank period for them now through.Spends most of his time twiddling his thumbs.He wants to make some money.Two years here and he’ll have enough to buy a
house.”

Smith had his tent pitched
on the
outskirts of the village on a bit of level ground.His
Land Rover was jacked up and in the
process of having its undercarriage painted.His tent was small and stretched over a canvas ground sheet.There was no doubt that he was pleased to see
us.

“How do you do,”
he said, getting
up from his canvas chair. ”Hope we’re not disturbing you,” said Archie,
politely.

“Not at all,” said Smith, “gladto be interrupted.Just in the middle of my two hours’ Italian
study.It’s a great treat
for me to have
company.May I offer you this chair?”
he
added, turning to me, “it’s the only one I have, so I’m afraid I can’t ask the
rest of you to sit down.One of
everything, that’s my line.One
chair, one
table, one bed, one cup, one fork, one knife, one spoon, one mosquito net, one
tent.”I sat down in the canvas
chair.

“Will you have
a lime juice in
the one glass?” he asked, “it’s all I can offer you.I don’t drink when I am on my own.”Smith was glad to talk.He
seldom saw anyone unless he went over to
chat to Archie at Mudia.He told
us how
he had arranged his day.“Most
important
to have a timetable,” he said, “often spend days here with nothing to do.Must make two years pass somehow.”

He explained that he
always kept his
watch two hours’ fast.“One candle and
one oil lamp can be rather dismal,” he said, “so I like to go to bed almost as
soon as it gets dark.But it seems
uncivilised
to go to bed at seven-thirty.So
I put
my watch on two hours and go to bed at nine-thirty or ten.It’s better walking up in the morning
too.The early hours are the coolest
but
I hate getting up early.Eight is
a far
more reasonable time to read on my watch than six o’clock.”

His day was split up
into the automatic
routine of household duties, cooking, cleaning, official correspondence if any,
jeep repairs, mending, and studying Italian and reading.“The
only thing I really do miss,” he said,
“is Hansard. I’d be happier if I could get Hansard regularly.”

On our return that evening
Archie
found a telegram awaiting him, asking him to apprehend a certain tribesman from
farther inland, who was wanted for murder.It was the second telegram of its kind since I had arrived in
Mudia.Tribal murders were literally
a
daily occurrence. “You may not have realised it, Kay,” said Archie, “but you’ve
shaken hands with at least three murderers since you’ve been here.The burly scoundrel I introduced you to
yesterday shot his enemy while he was asleep, and then stuck his head up in the
village square.The man in the next
village, who shook hands with us under the carpenters’ ilb, shot the baby of a
rival of his while it was in its mother’s arms, as she stood outside her
house.And the shifty devil who
wants to
build a fort in the souk has more than a few murders to his credit.”

December 29th

The next morning we
woke at
six-thirty as we had to make an early start if we were to reach Aden that
evening.We neither of us wanted to go
back: life at Mudia was far more stimulating and interesting than the
sophisticated daily round in Aden.But
Richard’s leave was up and I would have to fly back very shortly to Italy to
resume my work with the Council.I
wished we had been able to see more of the school.It had struck a modern note in a primitive
background and it was not possible to judge its impact after only one
visit.The interesting moment to
see it,
though, would come much later, a decade or so later on, when the generation now
squatting on the floor, tongue out, learning its alphabet, had grown up.I consoled myself by thinking that perhaps I
should be able to come back then, in ten years’ time.I would have liked, too, to see a lot more of
the ladies in purdah, and learn a little colloquial Arabic so that I could speak
to them myself. They had offered me a programme of dances if only I could stay
a few days longer.I went to say
good-bye to them at eight a.m. Ahmad had arranged for me to borrow one of their
dresses to wear at a New Year’s Eve fancy dress Ball, and I was to go and try
it on before leaving.We fetched
Miss
Nielsen from her surgery and arrived at about five past eight.The same wizened old servant let us in,
grinning excitedly, and one by one all the ladies and girls and children I had
seen at the tea party joined us.Their
enthusiasm about my visit seemed as great as it had been the first time, though
they were obviously less prepared for it.Ali’s sister greeted me with hands wet from the wash-tub and her hair
screwed back in a greasy knot.The
children were sleepy-eyed, snotty-nosed, with untidy hair, and wearing only the
briefest of grubby shirts.The little
boy, who had been ill, was whimpering, and the beautiful young mother-to-be
looked bedraggled and pale and sad.But
as soon as they saw me they clapped their hands and smiled and nodded.Ali’s sister put her arm around my waist and
led me upstairs.And there a strange
lethargy overcame us. We talked about the weather and smiled at each other,
Miss Nielsen fondled the children and enquired after the health of the
family.I had no idea of how long
Archie
had expected me to be there and began to get worried at the delay.

“Do you think
you can possibly
ask them about the dress?” I asked Miss Nielsen.

“I will try”
she replied, “but we
can’t hurry them too much.These visits
of yours will provide gossip for months and they want to make the most of
them.”

There was a little more
talk and
then one of the younger girls was sent off to fetch something.She came back with a sack-like bright red
silk dress violently decorated with appliqued patterns of reds and
purples.It was not at all clean
but
looked very splendid from a distance.We
looked at it and praised it, then Ali’s sister sent off another child to fetch
a second dress, very much like the first.Several more dresses, all like each other and all shapeless and
voluminous, arrived one by one and were examined and praised.Finally a beautifully-decorated black satin
one was brought along.The pattern
on it
round the neck and the hem and the arm holes was worked in lozenge-shaped
pieces of material in reds and greens and orange.It tried it on over my dress.It
wold have fitted over my winter coat, it
was so large.A length of very wide
material folded over and sewn down the sides, with holes left for the arms and
a hole cut for the head – it was exactly like the dresses I used to make for my
dolls or the Indian suit I once tried to make for my younger brother.

“How do I keep it in
round the
waist?” I asked Miss Nielsen

“With a belt of silver,”
she
replied, “but you could use a scarf.”

But Ali’s sister
had noticed my
gathering the dress in at the waist and had guessed what I wanted.She detached a key from the heavy bunch at
her waist and sent one of the older women off.We chatted and smiled politely for a few minutes and then the woman
returned, surrounded by little girls all peeping at me from behind her.She brought with her a massive silver belt,
made up of a dozen or more square sections which were fitted together by
running a string through slots at the top and bottom of each section.Further ornamented pieces were attached to
the bottom of each one so that they dangled and jingled as they knocked
together.It tried it round my waist
but
it would not meet.

“Heavens”, I thought
to myself,
“I must have put on a lot of weight in Aden if my waist is larger than Mrs.
Ali’s!”

But Miss Nielsen reassured
me by
explaining; “They are going to add more pieces to it – it was last worn by one
of the little girls.”

My costume was assembled
bit by
bit.After the belt was made up and in
place, a pair of silver bangles was fetched and tried on, and then a beautiful
silver necklace.By the time I had
them
all on, I began to feel literally weighed down by it all.Finally, they put a red and black net over my
hair and the dress was complete.I
could
not see myself, as there was no mirror, but the effect on the audience of women
and children was flattering.They
danced
all round me, laughing and clapping their hands with excitement and patting me
gently wherever they could reach.The
idea of a European woman dressed up in their clothes intrigued them immensely.

I asked Miss Nielsen
to thank
them very very much for the loan of it, and arranged to return it to them by
Ahmad who was coming into Aden with us and could bring it back on January 1st.We sat down and chatted
once more for a few
moments and then said good-bye.It
was
impossible to get rid of the feeling of a schoolgirl party in the dormitory.We were all girls together and whether we
were dressed in our best, as we were the first time we met, or in our working
overalls, it made no difference.In
a
society in which women are segregated for ever, with only rare visits from men,
they do not stand on ceremony with each other.Once more we shook hands and beamed happily at each other, and once more
Ali’s sister darted away as we reached the door.As I stood on the doorstep, looking to see if
the Land Rover was outside, I felt a small hand running itself up and down my
leg.I glanced down and there was
the
tiniest girl of the household smiling shyly up at me.I patted her head and she ranfriskily
away, grinning with pleasure.When
I got back to the dar, instead of seeing
irritation on Archie’s face at the delay, he seemed surprised.

“You’ve been quick,
Kay,” he said

Archie was coming with us
as far
as Zara, where we had all been invited to an early lunch.

“You’ve
had a scrap Arab lunch,
Kay.Now you can have a slap-up one in a
real palace,” he said.He
and Richard
and I and the driver got into the Land Rover.Ahmad, Mancini and a handful of guards followed us in the truck.The Sultan’s palace was one of four built on
the top of a rocky hill, springing up unexpectedly in the plain at the foot of
the mountain barrier.We turned
off the
road to Shukra and drove inland for a few miles to reach it.The site chosen for the four palaces was both
breathtakingly beautiful and staggeringly strategic.To reach the top palace, where we were
invited for lunch, we lunged our way up a terrifying path of rock and granite,
barely wide enough for the Land Rover and with a sheer drop on to the plain on
one side of it.The building of
this
narrow road was a credit to the Sultan’s engineer; so too, was the building of
the palaces, perched commandingly on the hill.My attention in driving up the sharp incline was not so much on the
beauties ahead of me, however, as on the possibility of the clutch slipping and
the gear not engaging.Missing the
gears
with no brake on that gradient would have required more than ordinary skill to
negotiate.But it was worth all
the
danger when we got to the top.As
we
stepped out of the Land Rover the Sultan’s bodyguard, in short khaki drill
suits, stood stiffly to attention in two rows lining the Palace steps.

“Come and take
the salute, old
man, and get it over.” Archie said to Richard.Taking the salute then, and at other times on our trip, amused me by its
exclusively masculine emphasis.The
solemn tilt of the jaw, the stiff attitude, the martial do-or-fie expression
made me feel I had wandered into a men’s club by mistake.Men only was now clearly written on
all their faces, so I hung back by the car, pulled loose the legs of my
trousers which had stuck to me with the heat, tidied up my turban and waited
self-effacingly.The salute over,
I was
re-admitted to the confraternity and we shook hands all round.The Sultan was away but the Sultan’s brother
welcomed us.He was a charmingly
intelligent-looking, small man, of about twenty-six, with quick bright eyes and
a friendly, almost feminine, smile.His
dress, in honour of our visit, put the rest of us, even Ahmad, in the
shade.His foutah was a plaid pattern
of
bright red and green, his shirt, hanging loose over the top, was of spotless
cream silk, his turban the finest purple satin, with gold embroidery.Round his waist was a particularly elaborate
leather cartridge belt and his gambia was of beaten gold – or so it appeared to
be.Even the canvas cross strap
--over
his shoulder was finely worked in
different coloured wools.We were
shown
into a long cool room with four windows, giving a magnificent view southwards,
right over the plain.On my best
behaviour in such royal surroundings, I slipped off my sandals before entering
the room.I then found, to my
discomfort, that no one else did, and that our host was wearing neat gym
shoes.We sat comfortably in deck
chairs,
sipping very sweet orangeade, while Archie and Ahmad and the Sultan’s brother
chatted.It was obvious that Archie
was
looked on as an old and very reliable friend.

A second supply of orangeade
was
offered us by a servant dressed in shabby khaki with a rough, white turban on
his head.The western idea of displaying
one’s wealth by dressing one’s servants well had apparently not reached this
part of Arabia.It was obvious that
the
Sultan and his brother kept their servants very much in their place:they all withdrew from the presence, walking
backward very hesitantly, as though expecting a reprimand.While we were sipping the orangeade, the
Sultan’s secretary came in and was introduced to us.He was a thin, sallow young man, with an
expression of tense alertness on his face.He had a withdrawn, apprehensive look about him which reminded me of the
builder at Lahmar.

Archie leant over and
whispered
to me: “He killed a man in the next state.There’s a price on his head and if he ever goes there, he’s a dead man.”
I looked at the secretary again.He
had
nervous, shifty gestures and his eyes were always on the doorway.

We were taken to see
the rest of
the palace.By western standards the
interior did not live up to its status.The floors and walls were rough and painted in gaudy colours.The stone staircases were chipped and not
very clean.The bedrooms were clean
but
bare, and contained only an iron bedstead with a white cover over it; they were
magnificently situated with views across the plain.The finest part of the palace was its two
balconies running north and south, so that one could sit out in the open and in
the share at any time of day, and gaze at one of the most beautiful views to be
seen anywhere.

The meal offered us
was very
palatable but somewhat westernised.There were plates to eat off, and knives and forks, and even bowls of
tinned pears as dessert.The chepattis,
made of wholemeal flour, and the rice and the various little dishes were
excellent.The Sultan’s brother
kept inviting
us to eat more.Archie and Richard
ate
as much as they could but it was Mancini who won the admiration of us all,
especially the Sultan’s brother.He
ate
enthusiastically and hugely and noisily, in true Arab style, piling what
appeared to be an almost half a kid on his chapatti, and cleaning the bone
within a few moments. He belched,
he
covered his face and right hand with meat and sauce, he flicked large
quantities of rice into his mouth, with one jerk of the fingers.In fact, he so endeared himself to the
Sultan’s brother that the conversation narrowed down to a dialogue between the
two of them or a most lively and almost affectionate kind.

We washed our hands,
as at the
beginning of the meal, with warm water poured over them by an obsequious
servant, into a basic held by another; and then dried them with a towel held by
a third servant.Back in the sitting
room, we drank ginger coffee or tea, according to our choice, and then Archie
asked Ahmad to explain to the brother what we wanted from the Sultan -a contribution of five percent a year towards
education and medical services.When
we
said good-bye, we all received invitations to come back and stay there whenever
we liked.

I had expected the Sultan’s
palace to be more magnificent and more oriental, but a misplaced, western
element of doubtful taste had crept in, presumably because of the Sultan’s
frequent visits to Aden.Gym shoes and
deck chairs clash with dust devils and volcanic mountains and silent barefooted
slaves.One impression of our lunch
at
the palace I shall never forget:the
sight of a very young boy in a coarse, short, rust-coloured foutah, standing
outside the doorway of the room while we were drinking orangeade.He was leaning casually and very gracefully
against a yellow-washed stone wall, with an expression of lazy, dream-like
interest on his face.The yellow
wall,
the rust-coloured foutah, the dark brown skin and black hair set off the purity
of his features, the slender cheeks, straight, perfectly-proportioned nose and
large, innocent, confident eyes.When
an
older servant chivvied him away, he flicked into life, lost his soulful look
and ran off giggling.

We said good-bye to Archie,
who
was going back to Mudia, but would be down to stay with us in Aden in two or
three days’ time, and climbed into the Land Rover with Ahmad and Mancini in the
back and the sulky driver of our journey out at the wheel.

The drive back, though
as bumpy
as ever, seemed to go far more quickly, I suppose because we were sorry to be
leaving that part of the Protectorate.We saw our last giant ant-hill, stopped for a cigarette at the waddy,
climbed slowly up to the top of the volcanic pass and rapidly down towards
Shukra with the sea ahead of us.Our
aim
was to reach Shukra and drive along the beach to Aden before the tide came in
too far, but when we reached Shukra the driver refused to go over the sand,
though the tide appeared to be no higher than on the journey out.We stopped to shake the dust off ourselves
and get a drink of water, and while Richard and I were upstairs in the cool
room where we first met Archie, the driver decided to take down the canvas hood
of the Land Rover.We did not quite
understand what caused him to make that decision:perhaps he had felt too hot driving and wished
to get the air now that the sun was down, or perhaps he simply thought it would
make the journey pleasanter for us all.Whatever it was, he found it was not a popular move.First Mancini and Ahmad protested and then
Richard and I did, too, when we came down; and Ali, to his great annoyance, had
to replace all the steel slats and put back the hood.He was so cross that for several miles after
we started off again, he exuded bad temper.Occasionally he grunted and snorted with anger and when he did both,
Mancini and Ahmad tried to pull his leg and jolly him out of his mood.It was no use – his face remained surly and
bad-tempered like a small boy’s, and he refused to speak.Then suddenly, as we were driving along,
across the hills of sand away to our right, we saw a small ibex staring at us
with its big eyes.

“Look, Ali! An
ibex” What a meal
he would make! A pity you can’t go bang bang and shoot him dead and have him
for your dinner.”It was childish humour
but it served.A grin spread slowly
over
Ali’s face and then, unexpectedly, he burst out laughing.He laughed so much that he had to pull up and
wipe thet ears out of his eyes.But the storm had blown over.From that moment he was cheerful and amusing and
helpful.

Since Ali would not
risk the
beach we drove inland over the sand dunes, deciding to try and go as far as the
Political Officer’s house in Abiyan and ask him if we could rest there until
the tide went out.We reached there
after the usual, hard, bumpy driving, with one interruption, at about eight
o’clock.The interruption
was due to a
party of five Indians who had set off in an old Land Rover for the interior and
had broken down a few miles sort of Shukra.They appeared, all of them, to be completely ignorant of the mechanics
of an engine and were grateful out of all proportion when Richard, with the aid
of a small piece of wire, was able to keep the engine running on an
exceptionally high flow of petrol, which would consume about five times the
usual amount but would at any rate get them to Shukra, where they could get it
mended.We had the feeling that
their
ignorance might lead them to continue running it as it was adjusted, without
bothering to have it repaired, which would inevitably leave them stranded
without petrol at some isolated spot far from all help.“Indians!” said Ali, with great scorn, as he
got into the Land Rover, after they had driven off with enthusiastic shouts of
thanks.

We fell out of the car
at the
political officer’s house, very dusty, very stiff, very hungry and very
sleepy.The P.O and his wife and little
girl greeted us kindly and politely but with a wan lack of enthusiasm. We were
their fifth party of unexpected guests arriving for rest and something to eat
in the last forty-eight hours, and they had a large party of people coming out
the next day from Aden.The larder,
which had already been over-strained, could produce nothing extra.Mancini chose to eat with Ahmad and Ali.Richard and I were offered an equal share of
the family meal – our hosts’ excuse being that they were too tired to eat
anyhow – so we each sat down to half an egg, a little salad, and a portion of
Christmas pudding, backed by a drop of whisky out of the almost empty
bottle.We were very grateful, and
restrained our appetites as muchas
we
could, but we got up from the table still feeling very hungry and only hoping
that our hosts weren’t feeling equally so.

We started off again
at midnight,
plunging our way down to the beach through deep gulleys of sea water, which
splashed and soaked up through the floor boards.And then
we began the last lap and perhaps
the most beautiful one, of the whole journey: the sea rolling in gently and
breaking unexpectedly beneath our wheels as we clung to the harder sand near
its edge, myriads of phantom-like land crabs sidling colourlessly and rapidly
in grey clouds away from our path, shadowy sand dunes on our right, a calm,
starry sky overhead and on our left, poised over a margin of the sea, the
Southern Cross, leaning slightly towards us as though giving us its blessing,
and seeming to keep step with us as we drove along.

We reached the flat in Aden
in
the early hours of the morning and were greeted with barks of joy by Peter, who
came hurtling down the stairs to meet us.

Postscript on the fort at Lahmar.

Archie
stayed two days with us.On the
third
day he received a wire to tell him that the fort had been attacked by the tribe
on the north bank, that the builder and two other tribesmen had been killed and
that the fort had been pulled to bits.None of the raiders had been caught.

“What will
you do?” I asked Archie.

“Go back
and put the fear of God into them,” said Archie “and start building the fort
again.Can’t have them thinking
they can
frighten us.”

[1]With many thanks to Helen Lackner,
who kindly transcribed the full text of Kay's
narrative froom the original faded typescript,
and has also published an extract from it in The British-Yemeni
Society Journal, Vol. 24. 2016.